Are there any Sears Mail Order homes in "O" scale kits ever made? Have a few spots on layout I'm saving these spaces for. There were several original Sears Homes in my home town and some in rural areas.
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I believe you are talking about what are know as Craftsman homes. A very interesting idea, I don't know if kits or homes were ever made but it would be an interesting scratch build or kit- bash project.
Ray
A Search for " $1500 load" will yield last Summer's discussion of the homes. John
I'd like to find one like my grandfather built for his family. Over the years it was "kit bashed"a couple of time: a second floor was added and the rear was extended and the kitchen and one more bedroom were moved into the new addition. I think a new porch was put on, too.
All of those look to be frame houses.
I grew up hearing stories about how Grandpa went down to the train depot with some friends and a couple of big wagons and took everything back to the lot where the house was going to be.
He also picked up a whole supply of Portland cement to be mixed and put into metal forms for casting their own cement block. There was no "finishing" lumber for the outer walls, but there were finished and ready to install window and doors, fire box and chimney for the fireplace, water heater, stove piping, and a bunch of other niceties. They also had to provide their own insulation and electrical wiring and fixtures.
It was also told that Grandpa almost paid for the house by making (actually, he hired some local kids to do the work) and selling concrete block for several years until the moulds fell apart.
The house still stands and is occupied at 330 West First North in Logan,Utah, but it has been greatly "restored" and modified over the years. It is still in Mom's family.
Before my Great Uncle Roy Ryan worked as a RPO postal clerk, he worked in a midwest lumberyard.
Customer who purchased Sears and other kit Homes would try to exchange the warped and crooked kit lumber that came by Railroad, for the nice straight lumber sold by the local lumberyard.
Nothing really has changed, people buy online and want local dealers to fix and replace poorly made and packaged good, for free.
Sears then and now Amazon could under sell because they brought in larger orders and got special pricing on freight from the railroads.
Like Home Depot and Lowes they would accept lower grade products to use in their kits (or Stores) than local lumberyards.
Jean Shephard has a great monologue about "Zudock's Sears House" delivered in a box car and what happens when all his friends help unload.
