Totally cool article about Flat Pack Homes from Sears 1908 -1940 Homes are awesome!

[tinydancer]

This is History for fun. You have to check out these homes that came with "some assembly required" that were shipped across the States and many still remain. First up is a man from North Dakota who restored his great grandparents "flat pack home".

I'll put up some of the pictures and floor plans. They'll blow you away. And it really is worth going to the link to check out the rest.

And you thought IKEA was difficult! North Dakota man restores his grandparents' 1916 flat-pack home ordered from Sears catalog to mark its 100th anniversary

• More than 70,000 Sears Catalog Homes sold between 1908 and 1940 - bought straight out of a mail-order booklet
• Sears offered hundreds of different designs which would all come pre-cut and ready to assemble by families
• A Reddit user decided to restore his great-grandparents Catalog home to its former glory on its 100th anniversary

A Reddit user decided to restore his great-grandparents Catalog home to its former glory on its 100th anniversary

Now check these out.

Sears house enthusiast Andrew Mutch believes as much as 70 per cent of the more than 70,000 sold have survived thanks to their durable materials

"RHSB explained on his post that his relatives had been granted 120 acres of land in the state for free under the Homestead Act, a 19th century law that granted land to people who proved they could take care of it.

The family then picked out a home from the catalog - which may be a Model No. 137, which sold for about $1,200 - the equivalent of $27,000 today.

Like the majority of Sears mail-order homes, the materials arrived into town by train and was taken to the land by horse-drawn wagons.

The home was then erected by the family, friends and neighbors. "

I just love all of these.

Man restores his grandparents' 1916 flat-pack home from Sears

 

[Picaro]

And Sears wasn't the only company selling kit houses, and from the 1880's on.

If you like this sort of stuff, Cornell University has a collection of scanned old books on all kinds of stuff like this, as well as agriculture, 'home economics', which in the 19th and early 20th centuries covered a very wide umbrella, not just baking pies and Kitchen stuff that it does in most schools. It's easier to find stuff on than archive.org, in any case. You can browse by time periods and eras.

Home Economics Archive: Research, Tradition and History

Core Historical Literature of Agriculture (CHLA)

And, there are several catalogs of house floorplans by various companies for sale, with rough cost estimates, as well. Here's a sample of one from 1852, in the CHLA lib.

Core Historical Literature of Agriculture

It has an advantage over pdf files in that you can check out and save individual pages instead of a whole book if you so choose.

 

[Owsi68]

Kit homes ... American ingenuity.

I love the idea and the homes look great. But considering they were sometimes assembled by family, neighbors and friends the follies must have been numerous.

How interesting our history is!

 

[Picaro]

Kit homes ... American ingenuity.

I love the idea and the homes look great. But considering they were sometimes assembled by family, neighbors and friends the follies must have been numerous.

How interesting our history is!

They were more self-reliant, and the average person developed varied skills, unlike today. It was considered irresponsible to take out mortgages for over 3 years, if at all, and buying these 'starter home kits allowed them to expand their houses at convenient times for their particular means and needs. Railroads made it possible to live in rural areas and still have access to urban perks and conveniences, at fairly affordable prices.

 

[Picaro]

I forgot to add that if one would like to have an entire book they find at Cornell, it will probably also be available in multiple formats at archive.org.

 

[whitehall]

There is a Sears home nearby where I live and they used to hove tours but it's boxy and plain and less than awesome but cheap at the time I guess.