Here are some pictures of my house: Album
It's located in Central NY, in the Fingerlakes region, between Seneca Lake and Keuka lake. The house was built in 1868 and additions were made between 1900 and 1910. When we bought the house, we were told that the three matching sconces in the dining room were original to the house. I think they are, but they are original to the 1900 dining room addition. Since I noticed our host has posted that he collects early 20th century lighting, I'd like to ask if John or anyone else might know anything about these odd lights. They seem Craftsman-ish to me and the dining room is a bit Craftsman, with a boxbeam ceiling, oak paneling, etc.
Another interesting thing about these lights is that they are mounted to pipes in the wall. (No wonder they were never removed.) We did some work that required opening the wall behind one of them and it was mounted to a one inch heavy metal pipe that went up to the ceiling. Possibly the old gas pipe? What does old gas pipe look like anyway?
I think that if I could figure out what these lights are and when they were made, it would help to date the additions and make some sense of what has happened to this house over the years.
My 1868 Italianate Victorian
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Victorian Homes & Buildings thread on victorianforum.com · started June 21, 2008 by TexMac · 3 posts, 2 image attachments · discussion in 2008.
Here are some pictures of my house: Album It's located in Central NY, in the Fingerlakes region, between Seneca Lake and Keuka lake. The house was built in 1868 and additions were made between 1900 and 1910. When we bought the house, we were told that the three matching…
Beautiful home you have! Your album reminds me of mine (not posted online...rather the one sitting here by the sofa). Same projects...in short, "I know". Great work.
Yes, those sconces are definitely craftsman-ish. I don't know more than that. I suspect that it is possible that they would have mounted them in way of old gas lines, presuming that they are mounted on one of the 1900-ish-or-earlier walls. We have a number of gas lines in our walls. Indeed, they have an outer diameter of around 1" (I have never measured and I don't have a pic handy) and, coincidentally, the builders ran a lot of them in the 1st floor ceiling (dining room chandelier, etc). Perhaps your dining room had gas sconces with a line that branched off of the line to a chandelier. I would suspect that in 1868 your town would have had a gas service, but more research might be warranted there (alternatively, maybe your house had gas retrofit at some point later in the 19th century).
As evindenced from my rambling above, I'm leaning toward those pipes being gas lines (but only if that wall is an old Victorian wall that would have had old Victorian sconces there). I do not think that it was typical to run a metal pipe-like conduit for wires back in the 1910s or 1920s. Much of the wiring in my house was "originally" done in February of 1921 (as per the wiring notes left in the attic by the Erdlitz boy who did it)...none of it was in a single conduit...it was all knob-&-tube in the attic, then just loose wires running down in the walls to the sconces. I don't think that they ran any wire in gas pipe here, but it seems to be a pretty good idea with the smaller "newer" wires presuming that you can get to both ends of an old gas line (not very likely here without serious surgery). Also worth noting is that the electricity used to come into the house in the attic and, from there, everything was fished downwards. Today, the electric comes in to the switchboard in the basement and, from there, gets routed up. I suspect that this was a typical arrangement 85+ years ago.
So, as I re-read this, I am ever more convinced that I have only rambled on and have offered nothing of real value. Thank you for sharing the pictures though!
- Jason
Yes, those sconces are definitely craftsman-ish. I don't know more than that. I suspect that it is possible that they would have mounted them in way of old gas lines, presuming that they are mounted on one of the 1900-ish-or-earlier walls. We have a number of gas lines in our walls. Indeed, they have an outer diameter of around 1" (I have never measured and I don't have a pic handy) and, coincidentally, the builders ran a lot of them in the 1st floor ceiling (dining room chandelier, etc). Perhaps your dining room had gas sconces with a line that branched off of the line to a chandelier. I would suspect that in 1868 your town would have had a gas service, but more research might be warranted there (alternatively, maybe your house had gas retrofit at some point later in the 19th century).
As evindenced from my rambling above, I'm leaning toward those pipes being gas lines (but only if that wall is an old Victorian wall that would have had old Victorian sconces there). I do not think that it was typical to run a metal pipe-like conduit for wires back in the 1910s or 1920s. Much of the wiring in my house was "originally" done in February of 1921 (as per the wiring notes left in the attic by the Erdlitz boy who did it)...none of it was in a single conduit...it was all knob-&-tube in the attic, then just loose wires running down in the walls to the sconces. I don't think that they ran any wire in gas pipe here, but it seems to be a pretty good idea with the smaller "newer" wires presuming that you can get to both ends of an old gas line (not very likely here without serious surgery). Also worth noting is that the electricity used to come into the house in the attic and, from there, everything was fished downwards. Today, the electric comes in to the switchboard in the basement and, from there, gets routed up. I suspect that this was a typical arrangement 85+ years ago.
So, as I re-read this, I am ever more convinced that I have only rambled on and have offered nothing of real value. Thank you for sharing the pictures though!
- Jason
TexMac,
Beautiful lights and they are authentic Arts & Crafts lamps Ca. 1900-1910., but hard to date to a precise year without lots of research. They may be Prairie Style, which is the Frank Lloyd Wright movement at the time. I tend to collect table lamps from the '10s, '20s, '30s, and '40s as well as have put some 1880s electrified gas lamps in my home where bicentennial plastic lamps previously hung, so your lamps are not what I am most familiar with.
Since these lamps are in a hanging orientation, they would never have been gas and later converted to electric - they would have always been electric. Gas was normally oriented upwards.
Since you have gas lines in the walls, that means that those lamps may have replaced an earlier gas sconce which is now missing.
John
Beautiful lights and they are authentic Arts & Crafts lamps Ca. 1900-1910., but hard to date to a precise year without lots of research. They may be Prairie Style, which is the Frank Lloyd Wright movement at the time. I tend to collect table lamps from the '10s, '20s, '30s, and '40s as well as have put some 1880s electrified gas lamps in my home where bicentennial plastic lamps previously hung, so your lamps are not what I am most familiar with.
Since these lamps are in a hanging orientation, they would never have been gas and later converted to electric - they would have always been electric. Gas was normally oriented upwards.
Since you have gas lines in the walls, that means that those lamps may have replaced an earlier gas sconce which is now missing.
John