Old interior house walls

[fixerupper]

Been watching TV steady for the past two days, caught a bad cold and have no energy so I am keeping the recliner warm. This afternoon I was watching a house rehab show. They went into an old house dated 1906 and started in with the normal sledge hammer swinging On the kitchen cabinets to make it look dramatic. But when they got to the interior walls, instead of plaster and lath they found a panelling of some sort over 1X12" sheeting. The interior walls were sheeted like the exterior walls would be only this interior sheeting was non tongue and groove and gapped 1/2" or so. In fact it was beautiful looking rough lumber. I think this house is in Mississippi. They acted like they had never seen interior walls like this. I have never seen this in my neck of the woods but something tells me this type of interior construction is more prevalent in the south. Am I right? How many of you guys have seen this type of construction?

 

[marloweg]

doing a house now that has 1x12 boards on the in side and just the siding on out side have to remove boards for new wiring and insulation then sheet with 1/2 plywood then sheet rock not fun house is over 110 years old have not found a round nail yet

 

[showcrop]

Are you referring to sheathing? Here in the Northeast there are sometimes partitions built of boards only with no framing. I was once in a very old house in a neighboring town fighting a bad fire, and I was trying to convince two guys from another department to join me in going to the next floor. I told them that the structure was post and beam so it was not going to fall down on us. Just then a wall fell on us from above. It turned out to be one that was boards only with no frame.

 

[Steve@Advance]

Who knows what will be found in those old houses.

Regional designs, mill capabilities, remodels, diy, so many variables.

 

[FBH44]

I know a man told me he and a few buddies were tearing down an old farm house, removed the tar paper siding and the exterior diagonal sheathing was 1" to 3/4" thick walnut boards.

 

[Stephen Newell]

I do remodeling work for a living and I've never seen anything like that. Then, I've seen a lot of strange things. People
just implement their own ideas when they are working on their houses so that house could have been the only one ever done
like that.

 

[kencombs]

Ain't that the truth! I redid an old house 30 years ago that had no studs! Even the outside walls. Full 2x top and bottom plates, vertical 1x12 sheathing inside and outside.

 

[fixerupper]

(quoted from post at 16:16:33 03/29/20)

Are you referring to sheathing? Here in the Northeast there are sometimes partitions built of boards only with no framing. I was once in a very old house in a neighboring town fighting a bad fire, and I was trying to convince two guys from another department to join me in going to the next floor. I told them that the structure was post and beam so it was not going to fall down on us. Just then a wall fell on us from above. It turned out to be one that was boards only with no frame.

The interior walls are studded.

 

[fixerupper]

There are a couple houses in our local town that have exterior walls made of stacked horizontal 4X4 s. The 4X4 s have a tongue and groove milled into them so it was a factory design. My son lived in one of them when he was married. I went to replace a window and this stacked 4X4 design is what I found. I later learned there is another house like it somewhere in town. The garage attached to this house was built with stacked wooden 50 cal ammunition boxes. A grease gun factory in town made 50 cal shell casings during the war and must have had extra boxes. The garage walls had lap siding but I forget what held the boxes together. It was standing strong 55 years after the war so the carpenter knew how to do it.

 

[Smalltowner]

My home is built like that, tons of good wood in it.
10? ceilings are 1x6 shiplap. It?s a 1921 gingerbread
style, lots like it in north central Texas.

 

[db4600]

In the late 80?s we built a house on the river for 2 ladies. I have a joke about that, but it would get poofed.

 

[Glen SW Wi]

Bought an old house down on the MS gulf coast. House was built in the 1800s. Had 6" tung and grove boards on the inside walls and ceilings. Walls had been covered with a fabric looking material first then wallpaper. Studs and boards were very hard oak or heart pine. Had to drill a hole before trying to drive a nail in. Never bent so many nails in my lifetime.

 

[Mike(NEOhio)]

Possibly the room was an addition and that was once an exterior wall. I those days often there was little or no building code or inspection. The wife's grandpa put an addition on the farmhouse back in the thirties. He used the old clay block for the basement walls. When we dug up to put drainage around the basement the footer was made of paving bricks laid side by side and the vertical joints on the back wall were not mortared but the end walls were. Go figure?

 

[jm.]

Lots of that in what we called farm tenant houses around here. Little two room houses on a larger farm for the help to live in. They like you said had base and top plate but only 1 by boards for the vertical walls.

 

[moresmoke]

My parents house was sheathed with boards inside and out. Wood shavings for insulation. Built in the ?70s. I would assume 1x6s. Then 5/8 rock on the
inside.

 

[John in Mich]

All interesting discoveries of older homes. I have two stories (well 3 if you count the house I grew up
in) of older homes being remodeled or refinished.
1. About 50 years ago my mother's brother was remodeling the house that they grew up in. My
grandfather had it built about 1900. When he was pulling some interior door trim he was surprised to
find that the top corner of each door trim, an oak piece about 5" by 5", had 9 (nine) nails holding
them. All wood was carefully pulled and refinished. I never hear anything more about it.
2. The 6 acres that we bought in 1983 was part of a farm that had a house also built around 1900. The
heir to the property decided to remodel it. It was a 2 story house with plaster walls inside. When he
removed all of the plaster and lath, he found full 2x4 studs, made of oak, on 12" centers. WOW!
The outside was sheeted with 1" by 2'+ slabs of oak. He claimed that all of the lumber was milled from
trees that had been on the property. I tend to believe it. In the fence row of the 6 acres we bought
were/are oaks 3 to 3 and 1/2 feet in diameter. In the couinty park behind us there are 2 oak trees over
4 feet in diameter.
When he tried to drive any nail he had to predrill both rough framing and finish work. He said whenever
a strong storm came by, the house just set there and went Uh!
3. The house the I grew up in was actually 2 houses: the original was built on site around 1900. The
second was moved onto site in the 20's and the two were joined together. It had a large kitchen with a
wood range and no bathroom. As a 7 year old we had moved from 2 bedrooms and a bath in town to 5
bedrooms and a path in the sticks. When my father started remodeling that first year, he divided the
large kitchen into a kitchen and a bath.
There were many surprises along the way. Wiring was individual hot and grounds passing through joist
and studs with insulators. Push button switches were mounted ON the wall, not recessed. It had a coal
furnace and dad added a oil heater in the dining room.
He first had to do a lot of supporting from the basement to the 2nd floor. Previous owners had
installed stair cases without any headers when cutting through floor joists. The dining room floor had
one heat register above the furnace and no headers to support the floor. It was 2" lower in the middle
of the room than at the walls.
There was no insulation. I think we poured "Zonolite"? into the walls from the attic.
I could go on with stories about this house but you would be bored about page 50. LOL
BTW, between working at Ford, farming and building, he died at the age of 53. My oldest son is now 53.

 

[504]

The house that was on this place was 70 years old when we gave up and built a new one. Totally built with 5x5 hand split lumber,locust,elm,oak, what ever was growing on the place. He wanted a log house and made do with what was here. It was held together with nails the size of a Bic pen , plaster on the inside and lap siding on the outside. A lot of 5x5s were 4 ft long,one small bedroom down stairs, and a sheet hung in the attic to divide the boys from the girls(10). There was nothing but the bottom of the tin roof when you looked up.

 

[37 chief]

I have a house on my place built in 1885-90. Most all the wood is actual size. All they did for a foundation is dig a hole about 3 ft deep, the size of the house, line the hole with redwood 2x6 around the bottom edges, on the dirt, and thorough the middle every 8 ft or so. then put 4x4 boards on the 2x6's, about 5 ft high, and built the house on top. Then put 1x12 x 3ft. around the basement dirt wall and back filled with dirt. I put a concrete aprin around the outside to keep the rain from seeping in to the basement. The house still stands. Stan

 

[rlp in Co.]

My Dad built a house for a guy that worked
for the government at the arsenal in
Denver. He could get all the 2X4s he wanted
for free. Thing is, they were from bomb
crates or something, and they were only
about 4 or 5 feet long. All the walls were
built by laying the 2X4s flat and spiking
them together with 16d nails!

 

[onefarmer]

My house that the main part was built in the 1800's some time and was pulled here early's. I think about 1914 and the wing added on. All of the exterior walls are sheeted on the inside with rough sawn 1x's covered with lathe and plaster. Making remodeling a bit harder the 2x4 walls are made with real 2x4's not 1.5x3.5.

 

[farmerjohn]

Around here (western PA) they are called plank frame houses. Never could figure out why they were built that way until I used that method to build a small outbuilding; easy to construct and you can use random-width non-uniform thickness lumber, and do it cheap!

 

[Jim Phelps]

Some old houses had ship lap interior siding, it some area's that would have been cheaper that plaster.

 

[Donald in MN]

my dads house was built in the early 30s in 64 he put in new windows. they found that the insulation was a mat made of cornstalks and hose manure. he
said that there was a place in winona that made it. in the attic there are porcelain insulators with barb wire where the original electrical lines
came in.

 

[DMartin9N-2N]

Good morning! Just a comment.... About 35 years ago, I was in a friend's house in which the builders had lined the whole interior with hardwood tongue-and-groove flooring. Varnished, it looked fine, although it was hard for me to get used to. Oh, well maybe cheaper than plaster.

Dennis M. in W. Tenn.

 

[fixerupper]

Speaking of strange construction, when I used to haul combines there was a house I went by along HWY 30 in southeast Idaho that was built out of straw bales. It wasnt a small shack, it was a full two story house. It looked like they used wire mesh and stucco on the exterior but last I saw of it the house wasnt completed and I first saw it a little over 20 years ago. That area is desert so waterlogged bales isnt a problem. Last time I saw it was five years ago and it was still standing but the straw was turning gray. I cant imagine an insurance company wanting to insure it, especially for fire damage. Maybe some of you guys have seen this house if you have traveled hwy 30 in southeast Idaho.