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the doors that come off the second story floor of an abandoned house
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i have a huge question.......on a lot of the houses i capture on the second storey there seems to be a door leading to the outside. now some elaborate houses have that and actually have a mini porch with a little fence around it almost like a balcony, but on some of the old farmhouses there's just a door and below it is the porch roof. no way it would be safe to walk out on there without a small fence, even back in the day when the house was in good condition. any ideas???
Posted at 7:14PM, 30 April 2007 PDT
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i don't know the answer to your question sadly.
However many years ago I was in London and pointed out to a Londoner a house that overlooked the Thames yet most of the windows were bricked in. I couldn't understand why some one would brick up a sensational view.
The Londener told me that many many (100's?) years ago a window tax was introduced. It was intended to be a means tax I guess as only the wealthy had houses that had lots of windows. Anyway, as a result heaps of people bricked in their windows to avoid paying the tax.
Probably not what you are referring to, but your post kick started my dwindling memory bank...
Posted 12 months ago.
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tim-that is very interesting though
Posted 12 months ago.
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I may have replied to this item previously.I lived in a farmhouse for 47 year's with a door which opened onto a porch roof.We moved to the farm when I was 11 year's of age,in 1953.The house was of 1911 construction,of cement block's on a fieldstone foundation with basement.(A side note.I have looked thru a New York site and seen similar style's,tho of wood construction.Around various part's of the country,there are intermittant style type's which can be grouped by vintage,each with some some individual geometry or form,material's being probably based on incidental local availability at the time of construction.)I eventually did develope a little psychosis about walking out on the porch roof.That seemed to occur as I got older,maybe over 21,due to "old age" and becoming convinced of the great danger's in the world.Maybe it was due to too many late night Frankenstein movies on TV in the 50's.There were a couple steel fence post's driven into the ground alongside the porch to keep some evergreen bush's standing up.I had begun to imagine falling off the roof there.Without those steel stake's,thing's wouldn't have inspired such undesireable imagination.I have a 1911 photo of the house given to me by a relative of the previous owner's,plus many later up to year 2000.An original porch may have been lost in a 1939 tornado and was replaced without a railing.It may have been used back then as a place to sit out on warm evening's.One thing I have figured out since is that the door should have opened thru the wall at the end of the hallway upstair's.There was instead,a window in that location.The door was inside one of three bedroom's.Not the most appropriate in term's of traffic functionality in any structure.To that I could add that if there was not a previous porch,but step's up to the second story on the outside,that in that case,someone going up into one of the three bedroom's would enter the hallway and then go to one's own room.As the door was located going into a bedroom,privacy would be interfered with,or at least someone awakened.Outside of that,the only possible other conclusion,is that only one person in the household was ever expected to use that door,coming up the step's,that being the user of the bedroom the door entered into.I moved into town after year 2000 and am still pondering the "system" and one of it's architectural anomalies.Old "cyber" error or mistake?As to the missing "railing's"It could be due to use of synonym's and dictionary definition.A "fence",a railing,and a balustrade all serve "similar" purpose's.A balustrade would be the proper term usage and also design of the structure as used on the house,it being a protecitve device,as well as decorative.A fence does not so much protect as it detain's.A rail is found on railroad's.The ubiquitousness of "fencing" on farm's for animal detention on the ground may have obfuscated other conscious consideration's in system design of farmstead's.So,poor and overlapping meaning and application of terminology may be a cause.Logical mystery.-----64kj4949b3a@sbcglobal.net.
Originally posted 5 months ago.
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64kj4949b3a@sbcglobal.net edited this topic 5 months ago.
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If you can imagine, many old farm houses were split into two living quarters. We purchased a house that has this very phenomenon, for two reasons. First, the farm family rented out one or more room upstairs and with a door leading up there, the person living upstairs didn't have to walk through the owner's living space to get to his room. Second, as is the case in our house, the staircase is narrow and larger furniture (as furniture became through the years) required a different path of entry...hence, the upstairs door.
Posted 4 months ago.
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