I live in one of these. Still standing since 1908, and honestly the quality of the wood used in the construction is the secret, I’ve been trying to find tight grained fir that I can make some plugs to patch some holes drilled for wiring in the original wood floor, and I can’t even come close. Luckily mine was made by a craftsman who obviously took pride in his work.
I owned a house built around that time, for a while, but not a kit house.
The lumber they used for structural members (huge, 8x10ish boards, very long, all around where the foundation met the house; joists; et c) or for other parts that were never meant to be seen, like floor underlayment (which was a bunch of ordinary boards laid diagonally, so they wouldn't match up with wood floor boards laid atop it—not plywood) would probably have gone to veneer these days. Knot-free, perfect stuff. Much of it's likely nearly impossible to get these days at any price, in the same size and quality, short of salvage from houses like that. I never got much of a look in the walls, but it was 2 stories plus a full-height floor for the attic (need that for temp control, in the days before air conditioning) and was "balloon" construction, which means they used a whole bunch of boards 2-3 stories high to frame the exterior walls, which, again, probably nearly impossible to find these days, straight and strong enough to do such a thing.
I follow some wooden window restoration businesses on YouTube and usually that is the first thing they say. Save your windows, because you can't buy wood of this quality anymore no matter what you spend.
It’s certainly possible to get such wood, but rare. Harvesting 1% of a timber parcel per year is devilishly hard. Those that do it have all the customers they need and don’t really want to talk with anyone else - it’s more a factor of how the wood is going to be used than the price.
Do you have any idea of suppliers or where to find such suppliers? Like I said, I'd like to find some of the tight grain Douglas Fir for my floor, and I also make furniture and pour hours and hours of my time into it, the wood is cheap in comparison.
That's my understanding, yes. There was so much old-growth wood (in North America, anyway) that practically all lumber produced was excellent by modern standards. No reason to bother with young or otherwise low-quality trees.
I notice that working-class houses of the 60s-80s (and a bit into the 90s) usually had solid wood trim and doors, too, typically throughout. Those are now luxury-tier, and even rather expensive houses will use particle board (basically cardboard—sawdust and glue) or pieced-together pine that must be finished with paint, and hollow doors, often without even finish-grade veneer (so they have to be painted, can't stain and varnish them). Expensive houses where the person building it cared a little more (or the buyer had input) may put solid wood in certain public areas, but e.g. bedrooms? Hardly ever, now, at least in houses built for/by people who work for a living. So the process of lumber-worsening may be ongoing.
The tight grain pattern that comes from slow growth in an old growth forest is something impossible to replicate in a post clear cut environment.
I am not positive, but increasing temps and lighter winters, more CO2 in the atmosphere, probably also increase the growth per season even in a forest that hasn’t been logged, if there are any.
In New Orleans (and surrounding areas), we have a large, dusty industry of salvaging old long leaf pine and either reusing it directly or re-milling larger pieces like beams into flooring etc. You can easily pick up old growth pine with tight grain here, but depending on where these kits sourced their wood, it is probably the wrong species. Might still be closer than anything you can find locally. If you ever make a trip to New Orleans, most salvage stores like The Bank, Riccas, Demo Diva etc will sell you a chunk of wood no problem.
I too live in one, although it was heavily modified around 2009 with a second story put on it. All the houses on this side of the street are the same Sears house model and all have been slightly greatly modified over the last 110 years.
