Photos of early 20th century homes in Minneapolis

[Realstreets]

I'm looking for photos of interior or exteriors of your ordinary houses from ~1900-1920. I've determined that the vast majority of houses built during that period in Minneapolis were either bungalows, four-squares or some type of vernacular 1.5 story design. I just bought a house built in 1912 and would love to see what homes of that period looked like then.

[seanrichardryan]

http://greatriversnetwork.org/index.php ... &sort=desc

[David Greene]

I'm looking for photos of interior or exteriors of your ordinary houses from ~1900-1920. I've determined that the vast majority of houses built during that period in Minneapolis were either bungalows, four-squares or some type of vernacular 1.5 story design. I just bought a house built in 1912 and would love to see what homes of that period looked like then.

I have a long-term project to restore the interior of our house. I think the best option is to find houses that look similar to yours and ask the owners if you can look around. I also got some clues by looking inside closets, which tend to have less "remodeling" work done on them.

There are also some great books at the Central Library that detail interior design, trim styles, colors, etc. from that period.

The good folks at Gilded Salvage on the Northside know *a lot* of stuff that can help you and they're more than happy to talk to you about your house. They also have lots of different sample trim pieces from that era you can check out - headers, casings, baseboards, plinth blocks and so on. Bauer Brothers is a good source for pieces but I've never found anyone there to be helpful in learning about this stuff. They're pretty much a barebones "tons of salvage" place - great if you already know what you want and have the patience to sift through thousands of pieces, move doors out of the way, etc. Architectural Antiques also has some nice stuff but it tends to be more expensive. They seem to focus more on interior hardware and that sort of thing, not so much on wood and trim.

Be careful about what people tell you about your house. I've seen a lot of houses labeled "Craftsman" or "Bungalow" that are not. Looking at the books at the library will help you determine the style. If you can't find a specific style that looks like yours (I couldn't for mine), it's likely a local stock plan/vernacular/transitional style house.

[David Greene]

http://greatriversnetwork.org/index.php ... &sort=desc

These give some good ideas but they appear to be houses designed by architects and are *much* more elaborate than what you'd find in a typical house of the era. The period Realstreets is talking about is the post-Victorian era where there was a general reaction that considered Victorian design as gaudy and excessive and so the designs are much simpler overall. Even a "vernacular" Victorian like my neighbors' house looks a lot fancier on the inside than the interior parts of my house that hadn't been remodeled with 1950's ranch casing (ugh!).

The Craftsman movement started in mid 19th century England as a rebellion against the elaborate but machined home designs of the time, the idea being that hand-carved/built stuff by artisans is much more valuable. It didn't really hit its stride in the U.S. until about 1920 or so. Craftsman homes here tend to me a bit more elaborate than the typical early 20th century home (pre-1920) because they contain a lot more wood on the inside. Ironically, the Craftsman style homes in the U.S. were almost entirely machined.