wood trim/reading a blueprint question
Here’s a blueprint for my 1909 row house. I’m slowly deciphering each and every detail here and matching them up to what remains in the house. The entry hall, kitchen, 2nd bedroom, and dining room are plainly labelled “oak”. No mystery there. But then what does “W Wood” or “W W” mean, in the case of the Parlor, Bathroom, and 1st Bedroom? Walnut?
chemosphere
in Wood Restoration 10 years and 6 months ago
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23 replies
vlack3bos | 10 years and 1 month ago
This is all fascinating. thanks for posting. i also have a 1910 row house in Flatbush, with a nearly identical layout (sans the rear bay windows, the back of my house is flat). Definitely taking a trip to the DOB this week to see what i can dig up. Also, Greenmountain, i too am a graduate of Brookline High with fond memories of the Industrial Arts building. i was there in the early 90’s, so we never crossed paths, but very interesting to read your post here!
chemosphere | 10 years and 5 months ago
Yet more proof: Here’s a blueprint of a Boston house from Two Family and Twin Houses (1908), which has more specific instructions for wood detailing. In this parlor, they indicate “W Wood – White Enamel”. I’m assuming that’s white enamel paint, right?
cate | 10 years and 5 months ago
A revelation! Thank you, greenmountain. FWIW our house is all poplar (except for some fir bead board). Some of it is stained to appear “mahogany” and some of it is faux painted oak. (House is early 1890s.) Don’t know re the laundry but have seen lots of floor plans of teens apartments with tubs in the kitchen next to the sink. Saw an 1890s one family house where the laundry tub was in a closet off the kitchen. A fixture didn’t have to be actually in the kitchen to have hot water. Maybe a holdover from the days of boiling laundry on the stove (or in the yard). Or maybe just because it’s an apartment. Or perhaps the basement was filthy with coal dust and no place for clean laundry.
chemosphere | 10 years and 5 months ago
Hmmm, “White wood” actually would make a lot of sense. Poplar can be stained or painted, so it could have looked like anything when finished, not just white in color. I’m looking at a contemporary home building source, Keith’s Magazine on Home Building, and there are a couple references to “white wood” panelling or finishing. https://archive.org/stream/keithsmagazineon27minnuoft#page/402/mode/2up/search/%22white+wood%22 So perhaps the two front rooms were initially with painted trim while the two back rooms were stained oak. This makes a lot of sense! Thanks everyone for input. One more mystery seemingly solved. Another: The permit lists both sinks, wash-tubs, and wash-basins in each apartment. The blueprint shows what appear to be a kitchen sink adjacent to the soapstone washtub. Why, with an enormous basement, did people apparently do laundry in the tiny kitchen? Access to hot water heater? What was in the basement then? Just coal and the furnaces?
greenmountain | 10 years and 5 months ago
I studied woodworking in the Industrial Arts building at Brookline High, Massachusetts in the early 1970’s. We had tools and machinery from when furniture making was an economic engine in town, and a pitcher for the Red Sox was also handy with his bat. We actually had a big stack of white ash bats, which we “turned” in to baseball bats with Buck Brothers skews and guages, burnishing them at last with soda bottle necks. I don’t know when the lumber rack was labeled, but there was a bin which didn’t correspond with either our sample board of hardwoods, or softwoods. It was marked “white wood.” and it was filled with poplar. Woodworking students, or our parents, had to pay for our projects, and white wood was a common choice (popular). I wondered why white wood was greenish, but it was easy to work, stable, affordable, and the best for painting. The school never asked us to pay for the bats, they had plenty. And, we didn’t have the heavier glass deposit bottles. But, Bill Lee, a pitcher then, spoke out in favor of the “bottle bill,” desegregating schools with bussing, and what ever else was on his mind. And we didn’t call them “soda bottles,” they contained “tonic.” And Bill never said, which he liked better, “grass or AstroTurf,” just that he “never smoked AstroTurf.” I got to take my nap now.
cate | 10 years and 6 months ago
I’m mystified. Maybe it does refer to some kind of type of wood, like “oak” does. But I would think “walnut” would be “wal” not “w wood.” BTW, in the entry, the oak where the doorbells sit could be faux graining. The wainscot could be fir. Houses did mix finishes — we had faux oak in the dining room, kitchen, pantry, and bathroom, and faux mahogany everywhere else. Do any of your neighbors have the original finishes?
chemosphere | 10 years and 6 months ago
Here’s a shot of the vestibule panelling (along with the speaking tube and lincrusta!) This is actual wood. Not sure what kind. Is this oak? The dining room doesn’t have panelling anymore but a rental ad for a neighbor’s house from the Brooklyn Eagle, in the teens, describes a “mission dining room”. It probably was wainscoted.
cate | 10 years and 6 months ago
What is the original wood detailing in the vestibule? Is it actual wood or faux painted? What kind of wood is it? Does the dining room have paneling as well as a beamed ceiling?
chemosphere | 10 years and 6 months ago
You can just walk in the Brooklyn Dept of Buildings, 210 Joralemon Street, 8th Fl. You should know your block and lot numbers for the entire row of houses. There was one file for my row of 6 houses. Fill out a form with this info, give it to the clerk, wait 15 minutes, give your license, etc. I have a feeling I was lucky because my house is relatively late, 1909\. Many people with older houses have reported not being able to find any folder or the folder being empty. Thanks for all the suggestions. I don’t think WW relates to the flooring. For one thing, the bathroom is labelled WW and the bathroom definitely didn’t have wood flooring. Secondly, the bedroom next to the parlor, labelled WW, still has the original parquet with the border that matches that in the parlor. Third, the kitchen is labelled oak, and this room currently doesn’t have hardwood floors. It is possible that it was removed, but every other room in the house still has them, and it’s my understanding that hardwood in the kitchen was uncommon at this time. Almost every detail matches up with the house. The blueprints are reversed left to right, there is a skylight that doesn’t appear on the blueprint, and some of the built-in closets (which have been removed) were situated sideways – I can tell by the hardwood patches on the floor. Here’s a page from the permit, detailing the bathroom fixtures.
midwoodflyer | 10 years and 6 months ago
This is fantastic. How did you go about getting these? Did you have to make an appointment or can you just walk in? Where exactly did you go? I definitely want to get these for my house and row!!
cate | 10 years and 6 months ago
Looking more closely at the blueprint, I’d say W wood in the parlor could mean walnut, whereas WW in the bedroom probably means wall to wall carpet. I can’t make out what it says in the bathroom, but I would think penny tile would probably be original to the bathroom, considering the year of the house.
cate | 10 years and 6 months ago
Could mean wall to wall, as in a floor covering such as linoleum or carpet on top of a subfloor. . Or wood wainscot. Fir bead board was very typical in bathrooms, kitchens and halls in lower cost buildings such as two families and multi families — but probably more 1890s than teens. A different patterned wainscot was typically used in dining rooms in the 1890s. Teens dining rooms were often paneled. A wainscot in a parlor would be very unusual.
MDR | 10 years and 6 months ago
I think WW must mean “Wood Wainscott”. Does that make sense for those rooms?
chemosphere | 10 years and 6 months ago
I went to Joralemon st and gave them the block and lot for the whole row. After 15 minutes, in exchange for my driver’s license, they handed me a manila folder with the original blueprints, permits, and inspection report. I walked across the room, photographed every page with my phone, and handed back the folder. The permits are incredibly detailed, including not only the size and material of the joists (3×8, spruce) but details like the original kitchen washtub (Alberene stone or soapstone). This is a 2 family house in Flatbush. We still have the original wood detailing in the vestibule, and the front window trim, but not in the interior rooms. We do have the beamed ceiling in the dining room. I’m assuming that the wood in the blueprints is not the flooring, but rather the decorative wood for wainscoting, window trim, door casings, etc. The flooring remains, and is parquet. The blueprints clearly label the bathroom as “WW”, even though it was tiled with penny tile. I know this because we removed the badly damaged penny tile two weeks ago. Here is the back of the house, from the same page of the blueprints.
Lurker | 10 years and 6 months ago
So great–any chance you can post the whole photo (or a photo of the whole page)? and what neighborhood is this from?
MDR | 10 years and 6 months ago
Well, what do you have in those rooms? Or is it covered up? It would be very unusual to use walnut for flooring at that time, could be more likely to be a decorative parquet. But I don’t know how that would translate to “W W”.
chemosphere | 10 years and 6 months ago
This is a photograph of a blueprint. Aren’t cell phone cameras fab?
no-permits | 10 years and 6 months ago
@tm07 that’s not a copy. that’s an original blueprint.
364house | 10 years and 6 months ago
“Wallaba Walnut”?