• architect_of_sanity@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    My grandparents ordered their house from Sears and grandpa and my great uncles built it over a summer weekend.

    Damn thing still standing and is now I think on a historical register.

    But today… we can do the same thing. You want a single or double wide?

    • Lexam@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      Ooh until you check the prices of a manufactured home (trailer / caravan) and find out how unaffordable they are. Bonus you can’t get a traditional mortgage for one.

    • Neato@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      I always wondered how they made the chimneys. Wood construction is fairly straightforward. But masonry seems like another beast.

      • Tavarin@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        The house I grew up in was a Sears house. Chimneys were stacked stones from where they dug the basement, put together with simple mortar. Concrete was used inside to create the fireplace beds (basement and main floor). Not very complicated to do really.

    • protist@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It’s hard to overstate how different the standards were back then. Much of the housing that was built pre-1940 has been demolished, but if you find an average neighborhood still around from that era, you’ll find tiny 2 bedroom houses in which parents raised often 3 or more kids, and this was the middle class norm. In the US, the average person has way more living space today than back then