|  |
|
From
1908–1940, Sears, Roebuck and Co. sold about 70,000 - 75,000 homes
through their mail-order Modern Homes program. Over that time Sears
designed 447 different housing styles, from the elaborate multistory
Ivanhoe, with its elegant French doors and art glass windows, to the
simpler Goldenrod, which served as a quaint, three-room and no-bath
cottage for summer vacationers. (An outhouse could be purchased
separately for Goldenrod and similar cottage dwellers.) Customers could
choose a house to suit their individual tastes and budgets.Sears was
not an innovative home designer. Sears was instead a very able follower
of popular home designs but with the added advantage of modifying houses
and hardware according to buyer tastes. Individuals could even design
their own homes and submit the blueprints to Sears, which would then
ship off the appropriate precut and fitted materials, putting the home
owner in full creative control. Modern Home customers had the freedom to
build their own dream houses, and Sears helped realize these dreams
through quality custom design and favorable financing.
Designing a Sears Home
The
process of designing your Sears house began as soon as the Modern Homes
catalog arrived at your doorstep. Over time, Modern Homes catalogs came
to advertise three lines of homes, aimed for customers’ differing
financial means: Honor Bilt, Standard Built, and Simplex Sectional.Honor
Bilt homes were the most expensive and finest quality sold by Sears.
Joists, studs, and rafters were to be spaced 14 3/8 inches apart.
Attractive cypress siding and cedar shingles adorned most Honor Bilt
exteriors. And, depending on the room, interiors featured clear-grade
(i.e., knot-free) flooring and inside trim made from yellow pine, oak,
or maple wood. Sears’s catalogs also reported that Standard Built homes
were best for warmer climates, meaning they did not retain heat very
well. The Simplex Sectional line, as the name implies, contained simple
designs. Simplex houses were frequently only a couple of rooms and were
ideal for summer cottages.
While browsing the Imagebank, you may
see many houses that partially or even closely resemble a house that you
own or have seen. Look closely, because the floor plan may be reversed,
a dormer may have been added, or the original buyer may have chosen
brick instead of wood siding. Plumbing may look like it was added after
construction, or storm windows may appear on the house but not in the
catalog’s illustration.
All of this and more are possible, because
the Modern Homes program encouraged custom designing houses down to the
color of the cabinetry hardware. The difficulty in identifying a Sears
home is just a reflection of the unique design and tastes of the
original buyer (see FAQs).
Construction
As
mentioned above, Sears was not an innovator in home design or
construction techniques; however, Modern Home designs did offer distinct
advantages over other construction methods. The ability to mass-produce
the materials used in Sears homes lessened manufacturing costs, which
lowered purchase costs for customers. Not only did precut and fitted
materials shrink construction time up to 40% but Sears’s use of "balloon
style" framing, drywall, and asphalt shingles greatly eased
construction for homebuyers."Balloon style" framing. These
framing systems did not require a team of skilled carpenters, as
previous methods did. Balloon frames were built faster and generally
only required one carpenter. This system uses precut timber of mostly
standard 2_4s and 2_8s for framing. Precut timber, fitted pieces, and
the convenience of having everything, including the nails, shipped by
railroad directly to the customer added greatly to the popularity of
this framing style.
Drywall. Before drywall, plaster and lathe
wall-building techniques were used, which again required skilled
carpenters. Sears homes took advantage of the new homebuilding material
of drywall by shipping large quantities of this inexpensively
manufactured product with the rest of the housing materials. Drywall
offered advantages of low price, ease of installation, and was added
fire-safety protection. It was also a good fit for the square design of
Sears homes.
Asphalt shingles. It was during the Modern Homes
program that large quantities of asphalt shingles became available. The
alternative roofing materials available included, among others, tin and
wood. Tin was noisy during storms, looked unattractive, and required a
skilled roofer, while wood was highly flammable. Asphalt shingles,
however, were cheap to manufacture and ship, as well as easy and
inexpensive to install. Asphalt had the added incentive of being
fireproof.
Modern Conveniences
Sears
helped popularize the latest technology available to modern homebuyers
in the early part of the twentieth century. Central heating, indoor
plumbing, and electricity were all new developments in home design that
Modern Homes incorporated, although not all of the homes were designed
with these conveniences. Central heating not only improved the
livability of homes with little insulation but it also improved fire
safety, always a worry in an era where open flames threatened houses and
whole cities, in the case of the Chicago Fire. Indoor plumbing and
homes wired for electricity were the first steps to modern kitchens and
bathrooms. Sears Modern Homes program stayed abreast of any technology
that could ease the lives of its homebuyers and gave them the option to
design their homes with modern convenience in mind.
Link:
Sears Home Of Chicago |
| |
