Craftsman (Arts& Craft) style residential homes--HO Scale

[Anonymous]

Has anyone built "Timberline Scale Products' (HO) "#354 Juniper Street " craftsman kit of a circa 1920 Craftsman bungalow? I just got one at a swap meet. Are they still in business? Also, I'm seeking Spectrum's seemingly out of production (HO) "Sears' Catalog Home of a circa 1920 'four-square'. Anyone know of a source for this kit? Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Good tip about NEB&W-one of my favorite alltime model railroads-I grew up n that neck of the woods so I can really appreciate their efforts over the years. Also, I'll look into the Lee Valley books-they are one of my favorite mail order sources for everything woodworking and unusual hardware-good prices and great service. They have first class catalogs-separate ones for tools(mostly woodworking), hardware, gardening, etc.Their phone # is 800-871-8158. Full name of firm is 'Lee Valley & Veritas'. FYI, I do remodeling of residences in north Atlanta area and build Arts & Crafts style built-ins and furniture. I'm currently remodeling my newer ranch home incorporating many bungalow/arts&crafts details inside and out. There is a resurgence of interest (new home construction) in both the 'four square' and 'craftsman bungalow'/arts & crafts style of homes - at least in parts of the SouthEast, especially in the Atlanta area. I agree with the forum member's spouse, who is a Realtor, that white is the safest color for resale, but it sure is boring! Try painting doors a reddish brown, window trim in greens, black, or dark red and vary roof coloring in browns, dark green, gray , or even black. Stonework and brick will add selective color and not all brick was 'brick red' -some of it was tan, yellow or brown, especially if it was made locally. Brick colors depended a lot on the color of the local soil just as early 'box car red' wasn't consistent across the country either. One other bit of obtuse data re: 'craftsman' architecture - it was but part of an idealogical movement that was a reaction against the frilly and overly fussy styles of the 19th century and the often poorly done early mass production of everything Victorian, Colonial, Georgian, etc. It was part of a social movement professing to encourage people to be more in touch with their surroundings, with nature, and to utilize local natural materials in the construction and furnishing of their residences. There is quite a lot of material out there re: all aspects of this very important era in American architecture; if anyone is interested I can recommend some resource material. Interestingly, the 'craftsman/arts & crafts' era came to a screeching halt about 1930 when interest quickly shifted back to more traditional and more formal architecture, especially ' colonial' and "cape cod'. Oddly, modernist styles, including 'art deco', became fairly common inside the homes in the 30's and 40's. And then the 'ranch' style became a must have after WW2. Think it's time to go kitbash something!

[Anonymous]

If you want to scratch build, and/or superdetail, you might want to look at these two books. I have the first one, and it is full of all kinds of details that you may not (or may - I guess it depends [;)] ) expect to see.

http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.asp?SID=&ccurrency=2&page=44493&category=1,46096,46100

http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.asp?SID=&ccurrency=2&page=46527&category=1,46096,46108

Andrew

[orsonroy]

Yeah, that's all true, except that I'm working off color photos of my modeling area taken during the early and mid 1950s. Everything's white. I even cross-referenced that assumption by checking every Morning Sun railroad book I have in my collection, and every CERA and other traction book in my father's. When I say that "every house in the 1950s was painted white", I'm not kidding. I mush have looked at a couple THOUSAND color images from the 1950s before I called it quits.

The mad ru***o paint houses white started in the 1910s, when paint manufacturers finally figured out how to mass-produce white cheaply. Before that time, white was achieved in one of two ways: white washing, which is a mix of quicklime and water, and expensive oil paints, which was a kerosene and glycerine mix base with white pigment added. Either method was expensive in both materials and labor. Whitewashing was especially expensive, since you had to re-whitewash every year or two (who remembers Tom Sawyer?). Only the wealthy has white houses, and this is the key. Once white paint became affordable (and it soon became more affordable than any other color besides oxide red (which is just rust and turpentine), because of the demand), every middle class homeowner and dairy farmer started painting their houses white, usually with black or dark green windown trim. It got redundant fast, but THAT was the real house color style from about WWI to today. Arts and Crafts was an attempt to reverse the spread of Modernism into everyday culture (A&C was a Socialist/Humanist movement, you know), and white houses was modern. Arts and Crafts lost. Even driving around today you'll see the vast majority of houses painted or colored white (up to 75% of the majority in a lot of places). Driving around in rural Illinois and Indiana, you can drive 100 miles and never see anything BUT white houses. Today, houses are painted white because "that's the color they've always been". My wife is a realtor, and she states that a house that's painted any color BUT white (especially interior walls) will sell for less money. She's proved it.

Personally, I loathe white in a house. It's sterile, impersonal, and shows a lack of imagination. I haven't been able to determine the original color of my house (someone scraped it at least twice), but it's been painted white at least twice in the past six or seven coats of paint. Thankfully, the previous homeowner had some class, and painted it in a nice deep buff (tan?). I've since added cream and hunter accents, and the only white walls inside the house are in the layout room (where the walls aren't painted as the backdrop anyway).

Painting almost every house that's going onto my layout some variation of white will be fairly painful for me, but I'm using my layout as a time machine, so I've determined to live with it. There will be enough railroad structures that aren't white (railroads had the money to afford other colors) and brick buildings to satisfy my love of color. Heck, I'm modeling the spring because of the color (my traffic will be based on the fall, since late spring/early summer was the slowest time for railroads in the 1950s).

As for house colors, I'm basing any non-white tones on the Sears catalog paint sections for the 1930s-1950s. The NEB&W website has a couple dozen catalog pages online that I'm using as my baseline. Sears sold more paint than Sherwin-Williams at that time, so I think I'll be safe!

[Roadtrp]

The models at this site are paper, and probably more 'primitive' than most here would want to use on their layout. But I thought it was a pretty interesting collection of styles and buildings that you don't usually see.

http://www.fiddlersgreen.net/index.htm

[Anonymous]

Ray, re: "everyone painted their houses blah white" in the 1950s, again I recommend that you visit Sherwin-Williams for not just their 'Arts & Craft' era paint chart, but for other era paint charts such as 'Jazz Age', 'Streamline', etc., for they have paint charts specific to the fabulous fifties and they're anything but white-especially if you are replicating a newly built ranch home. Also, who's to say that all your 1/87 neighbors kept their houses freshly painted-you could have a neglected bungalow still in original paint scheme. In fact, many bungalows had fallen into disrepair in the '50s thru ' 80s, or were remodeled, often in an awful way, during that time with fake stone or brick covering up the termites, front porches closed in, alum. windows added, insensitive additions on the sides or out back, etc. Many, as I mentioned before, became small businesses with really awful changes. The closer to industrial areas these houses were the more they typically were converted to businesses, or deterioated, and were often a mixture of residential and commercial as zoning changed over the years. As these houses are being restored one can witness often the same scenario-you'll find a mix of houses begging for a more caring owner, remodeling in process, newly painted in original A&C paint schemes, and the neighbors that everyone dreads. Many of these in-town bungalows (as well as other architectural styles-especially Queen Anne, Colonial, Victorian Stick, and Four Square) have been converted to boutiques, law offices and the like.

[orsonroy]

That's the nice thing about living in a neighborhood full of 1890-1920s houses. Any time I need to take a measurement of something, I just wander outside with a tape measure, and knock on a neighbor's door (people have gotten used to it on my block) It sure makes scratchbuilding easier!

My current layout is based on a prototype that goes through several "generic" central Illinois towns. One of the projects that has my juices flowing will be modeling the section of Bloomington, IL, where the dual NKP/P&E main lines run straight through a very nice middle class neighborhood. Queen Annes, Mansard roof Victorians, Foursquares, Cape Cods, and bungalows are everywhere, and the area is full of 70'+ trees. The only problem is that I'm modeling the 1950s, when everyone painted their houses blah white!

[Jetrock]

Not to mention bay windows! I see quite a few in town.

Indeed, bungalows are perfectly appropriate in the modern era (for those of you reading this who have complained about the lack of "modern" buildings in the hobby)--right now I am living in the middle of a neighborhood of bungalows, and bungalows and foursquares line both the railroad lines through town, where they aren't braced by old brick buildings. Wood is predominant in the Sacramento area, along with stucco-covered wood, but brick is not uncommon--along with scattered Tudors and Spanish Revival homes.

Making the pillars in an improvised lathe generally isn't much of an option because the pillars are generally rectangular--each side is an extended trapezoid.

The main issue I tend to have with most commercial kits is that the porches are generally too small or nonexistent--in the days before air conditioning, the porch was an extended living room, especially in places like Sacramento that featured 110+ degree summers. I may end up scratchbuilding anyhow because my layout is the shelf sort and most buildings will be flats--so the porch is really all I have to make, with trees on either side (downtown sacramento literally has a canopy of trees that covers most of the residential neighborhoods) and backyard fences to disguise the fact that it's a flat.

I'll take another look at the models you mentioned. I was looking at the Atlas bungalow model and liked it but passed it by because I was in a cheapskate sort of mood--I'll have to look at it again. Or just break out the clapboard siding and start sawin'...

[Anonymous]

Craftsman style bungalows usually sat several feet up from ground level and usually had fairly prominent entrances, often centered on a porch with approx half a dozen steps from ground up to porch level. Windows often had many small panes in upper sash with a single large pane on lower sash. Here in the Atlanta area Craftsman style/Arts & Crafts style bungalow are selling for astronomical prices compared to other styles of homes in similar neighborhoods on a $/sq.ft. basis. In northern and southern Calif. they are out of reach for most working folks. This style would certainly be appropriate for even a modern era layout in any state of preservation, from inner city deterioated and possibly turned into a run down plumbing supply business to an upscale neighborhood with a yuppie SUV parked out front. For you modelers in the "windy city", bungalows were almost universally brick due to a 'no wood' building ordinance; also front porches were less common there, replaced by a 'front room' due to your winter weather. As one drives around the backroads of America, small bungalows are less evident, and when you find one, you'll notice that it is sited closer to the ground than its counterparts in most cities. Many small farm houses had tapered 'elephant leg' columns added to mimic Craftsman bungalows. Not just Sears, but quite a few other firms offered catalog homes often sold on a kit basis to home owners or contractors. Most of these pre-fab homes enjoyed a good reputation for structural integrity, etc. A great source for correct 'arts & crafts' period color schemes is Sherwin-Williams-they have a brochure specific to 'arts & crafts' colors. A trip to Borders or Barnes & Noble will yield numerous reference sources dedicated to this style of architecture; if anyone needs specific title/author info ask me. . ".American Bungalow" magazine is a wonderful resource that is also stocked at the above book stores. I will be kitbashing and scratchbuilding quite a few of these homes for my new L&N layout and will update this post on my progress/sources of stuff, etc.if there's sufficient interest. As an aside, many small(er) town RR depots shared many architectural features with bungalows-clapboard siding, exposed rafter tails, gables and/or hip roofs and often with dormers, bracketed eaves and similar windows!

[orsonroy]

Atlas has two Arts & Crafts homes out: Kate's Colonial Home, which is what's normally called a "suburban bungalow" or foursquare. They also make the nicest standard bungalow on the market ("Barb's Bungalow"). Depots by John just released two Chicago brick bungalows in resin from the same masters they used when making the residential structures for the new Chicago MSI museum layout.

Caliofornia Model Co. has wood kits for two different California bungalows. The Rix kits are a good representation of late 1930-early 1940 "affordable bungalows", which can be seen all over the place in housing development areas that were build right after WWII. The Revell farmhouse can be simply kitbashed into a suburban foursquare, and Funaro and Carmelengo makes a copy of the Bachmann "Sears house" in resin.

Let me mention a couple of things about the Bachmann house kit. It's what they call a "Sear's catalog house". Sears had dozens of house styles in their catalog and not all looked like this. The architectural style is actually called a "Denver Foursquare", because that's where it was invented. The Bachmann kit is of a HUGE version of a Denver Four. There are something like 15 houses to this style within a two block radius of my house (a very nice 1898 Suburban Four), and none are as big as the Bachmann kit. Not all Foursquares are made by Sears or in the Denver style. The only thing that makes a Foursquare is the fact that's it's either two stories, two stories with an expandable attic, or three stories with a sealed attic, and the four sides roughly form a square. A suburban foursquare is basically a square bungalow with a second story. Any of these houses could be made out of any material (I've seen Denver Fours made out of cinder blocks!), but brick fours are most common within 300 miles of Chicago. Most Arts & Crafts houses made for the mass market are of baloom frame construction.

I'll agree that Arts & Crafts houses are pretty poorly represented by the kit manufacturers, but then again, it could be worse. Houses in general are poorly represented. We don't have a SINGLE Spanish ranch, or stone Tudor, or Prarie (Frank Lloyd Wright). Mansard roof houses are basically nonexistant, with the only one in plastic coming from outside the hobby (Polar Light's Bates Mansion, which is almost HO scale, but which needs a LOT of work to make it truly correct)

Thankfully, bungalows and suburban fours are pretty simple to scratchbuild. I've made them in both HO and N scales. It's the INSIDES of these houses that are ornate. Wander around with your camera on a nice spring day and start taking pictures of neighborhoods. Figure out where the windows were and why (remember, this was still the Victorian era until 1918, and lighting was mainly via windows, so they're large and plentiful), buy some Evergreen clapboard siding and Grandt Line windows and doors, and start building!

[Eriediamond]

Jetrock and others wanting pillars. An easy way to make those pillers is to use the correct size wood dowel and chuck it up in a 1/4" electric drill. Secure the drill to your work bench or table, turn the drill on using the tigger lock. Using a flat "mill" file you can swiftly taper the dowel for your pillars. It is quick and easy. If you want to get fancy you can use the corner and edge of the file to add some detail to the pillars using the same method. A sanding block with fine grit sand paper could also be used.

[Jetrock]

I'd love to find some--the city I model (Sacramento, CA) has many, many bungalows--all with porches, due to Sacramento's hot summers. I built a Rix kit that is vaguely bungalow-ish but it's pretty small and too square, and of course the porch is wrong--now that my scratchbuilding skills are improving I may scratchbuild one, but it would certainly be nice to find more kits of bungalow, foursquare or Victorian-type houses!

Sacramento's bungalows tend to be a "high-water" style--raised a few feet off the ground with steps and half or sometimes full basements. This is because Sacramento used to flood pretty regularly and a few extra feet could make the difference between a dry floor and an underwater one! Those, though, I will almost certainly have to scratchbuild...I just need to find a source for the "elephant" pillars!

[Anonymous]

This architectural style also known as 'bungalows'and 'four squares' were/are very common around rail lines all over the country. They were the most common style of residential architecture from approx 1905-1930 and many are in use today as private-often restored- private residences, or were converted to businesses of all sorts. The bungalow style is easily recognizable with its front porch, columns-often tapered like 'elephant legs', fairly steep pitched roofs w/ a single shed or gable dormer in front and gabled roof ends. Furthermore the roofs typically had exposed rafter tails. These bungalow were usually 1 or 1 1/2 story homes, although some were larger and two storied. Depending upon the region of the country where they were built, they often had shingled siding, sometimes mixed with clapboard, and most used accents of local stone or brick. Typically they were fairly small houses 1200-1800 sq.ft. The "four square' style was usually more conservative, often lacked a front porch or had a much less prominant entry, were usually clapboard and always two story homes. Roofs were either hip or gabled (front to back or side to side). They were usually built on small lots, especially in town, and if they had a garage it was detached and located at the rear side of the property. Bet you've seen a bunch of these and if you haven't, the next time you railfan in most any community look around. Towns evolved around their local train routes, especially 100 years ago. My point is, with a few exceptions, model railroaders have had to settle for less appropriate real estate for our residential neighorhoods near our tracks and in towns. Spectrum offered the now out-of-production Sears catalog home (a four square), Timberline Scale Products' kit #354 Juniper Street was a superb bungalow( but are they still in business?), and years ago Suydam offered several typical Calif. bungalows. Other than that we have to settle for lightly disguised European prototypes except fort a few nice kits (but not 'bungalows' or 'four squares') from Walthers and IHC, plus a couple with some kitbashing potential from Atlas. Anybody know of any kits, especially plastic, that I've overlooked? These homes are needed to accurately portray railroading from 1905 up to today. What do you think?