always fascinates me to see buildings in such disrepair that they are literally falling down
here’s one i first saw last February ’08…
West Elevation … visible form the highway
South elevation… from a vacant field… also last Feb’08
and later…. September ’08
Maybe you have some old ones near you that you pass on a timely basis
Mike Hussein Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
Edited 2/15/2009 6:19 pm ET by MikeSmith
Replies
still standing at Christmas...
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and just last week....
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and last week from the highway ( West Elevation )
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Edited 2/15/2009 6:23 pm ET by MikeSmith
Edited 2/15/2009 6:24 pm ET by MikeSmith
Edited 2/15/2009 6:24 pm ET by MikeSmith
Common site in rural Georgia.
Chuck Slive, work, build, ...better with wood
My place had a pretty good "leaner" barn until a few years ago when I took it down to put up the shop. For all I know it was built with the lean. There are plenty of others within spitting distance. Several houses too...
I wa going to say the same thing. Got one around the corner, although I'm not sure it was a house. I'll try to remember to get pictures tomorrow.
Beautiful pictures actually. There are a few here in the Hamptons quite similar. Hard to believe given the value of the land around here.
Was/is someone working with ab2West_2_11_09.jpg ?Looks like brand new recycle and garbage bins next to the house.
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
this is a barn / garage right behind a houseMike Hussein Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
here's the house......
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looks pretty well maintained
Mike Hussein Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
Edited 2/15/2009 11:08 pm ET by MikeSmith
A pretty well-known local photographer had an exhibit a few years back of a whole bunch of structures like that from around here.
Local abandoned Peters ammo factory.http://www.forgottenoh.com/Peters/peters.html
What a waste.
Those barns should have been recycled. Yes I often think about our old farm house, and the stories by folks told growing up in the depression.
I also wonder about all the housing built during the "Booms" how long till they turn to dust.About an hour away they are re-bulding and old round barn, stone foundation and weird roof, fund raseing done my the locals. Google the "Bell Barn" Indian Head, Saskatchewan, Canada. It has a nice history.
I went to school near this round barn:http://rogershepherd.com/WIW/solution4/shakers1.htmlPretty impressive, even to a teenager.http://www.tvwsolar.com
I went down to the lobby
To make a small call out.
A pretty dancing girl was there,
And she began to shout,
"Go on back to see the gypsy.
He can move you from the rear,
Drive you from your fear,
Bring you through the mirror.
He did it in Las Vegas,
And he can do it here."
Neat link.
built with out an architect!! Gee did the contrator have his permit number on his horse drawn buggey? Sorry for the mind slip!
Why did those old dudes cobble together something that would outlast the dreams? I was at a farm and the old owner was showing me around. They bought a house from Sears and ordered a Barn package. She remarked her grandfather hired a ship wright from Vancouver to build it. Today the curved roof barn is still standing straight as an arrow and the house still has all the old unpainted wood trim. A true testament of timeless craftsmanship. Sort of gives you the warm fuzzies!
Robert Frost called it the "smokeless burning of decay"
I thought he addressed that post to me, whew.Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations
They kill Prophets, for Profits.
Robert Frost - The Wood-PileOut walking in the frozen swamp one gray day
I paused and said, 'I will turn back from here.
No, I will go on farther- and we shall see'.
The hard snow held me, save where now and then
One foot went through. The view was all in lines
Straight up and down of tail slim trees
Too much alike to mark or name a place by
So as to say for certain I was here
Or somewhere else: I was just far from home.
A small bird flew before me. He was careful
To put a tree between us when he lighted,
And say no word to tell me who he was
Who was so foolish as to think what he thought.
He thought that I was after him for a feather-
The white one in his tail; like one who takes
Everything said as personal to himself.
One flight out sideways would have undeceived him.
And then there was a pile of wood for which
I forgot him and let his little fear
Carry him off the way I might have gone,
Without so much as wishing him good-night.
He went behind it to make his last stand.
It was a cord of maple, cut and split
And piled- and measured, four by four by eight.
And not another like it could I see.
No runner tracks in this year's snow looped near it.
And it was older sure than this year's cutting,
Or even last year's or the year's before.
The wood was gray and the bark warping off it
And the pile somewhat sunken. Clematis
Had wound strings round and round it like a bundle.
What held it though on one side was a tree
Still growing, and on one a stake and prop,
These latter about to fall. I thought that only
Someone who lived in turning to fresh tasks
Could so forget his handiwork on which
He spent himself the labour of his axe,
And leave it there far from a useful fireplace
· To warm the frozen swamp as best it could
With the slow smokeless burning of decay.
Thanks for that,excellent.Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations
They kill Prophets, for Profits.
Thank you.
Yep. Love the guy & his poems.
Rural upstate NY has a ton of those. Beautiful Greek Revival returning to the earth.
I keep telling you ya live in too nice an area.
you gotta get out more ... they're everywhere in the ghetto.
Jeff
Buck Construction
Artistry In Carpentry
Pittsburgh Pa
you gotta get out more ... they're everywhere in the ghetto.
Jeff
Philadelphia is full of them. when the roofs cave in a couple of guys in an Escalade come by and pay cash for the property.
When they own the whole block it gets ripped down and the raw land sold.
Nice work Mike. ERRR.........I mean on the photography. I'm not implying that you worked on the houses. :)
Love you.
C'mon C'mon and do..... The locomotion with me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3sCNRnn7GA
Usually things speed up after the roof goes.
jt8
If you aren't embarrassed by your offer, then you are offering too much! --DanT
Rebecca has finally stopped giving me grief over a house about a half mile from ours. We pass it every day, I always slow and look and almost always comment about new decay. Or lack thereof.
In the last year a few small holes opened up in the roof. That has really sped up the decay.
It sat on a several acre wooded lot. I had my eye on it for a few years. With horrific timing, a builder with no money bought it a couple of years ago, stripped the acreage bare, then ran out of money before he could divide and build.
And so it sits.
I've always wanted to go inside and take some photos.
There are some cool photos of decay in Detroit at:
http://reliques.online.fr/detroit/detroit00.html
That cool house! What a tragic waste it all seems to be.
Michigan Central Station was pretty neat... but this was my favorite
View ImageMike Hussein Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
I pass this barn everyday. The winter has been hard on it, the left side is now gone.
that's a great one....
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why don't you go back and take some from other angles.... that silo is very unusual...
BTW... great colorsMike Hussein Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
I pass it every day...If I remember the camera I'll update it...
Silo ???I don't see a silo in that pic. Just wondered what you're gettin' at...
Is It Cold In Here, or Is It Just You?
look again the structure on the left with half it's roof missing is a round squat silo...
unless of course , i'm wrongMike Hussein Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
It looks to me like it's just a wing of the barn, but most of the roof has fallen in.ie: the ridge from the left would run stright over to the ridge to the right of the trees.
Q: How many women does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: None, she can cook in the dark.
you're right again !
View ImageMike Hussein Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
Are those freaking vultures on the roof?!
jt8
lotsa worse things happen to better people than me every day. --Snort
I stopped by the barn today and took a pic of the house down the road.Didn't have time to edit or resize
Looks like Mikes "silo" bit the dust.
I always wonder what lives occured in these old structures, what hopes and dreams did the people living in them have and if they were realized.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In America everybody is of the opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors, for, from the time of Jefferson onward, the doctrine that all men are equal applies only upwards, not downwards..... Bertrand Russell
http://www.drawingwithlight.smugmug.com
with the house near me, a family had owned it from Mass. They came up here and camped for a month every summer back in the late sixties and early seventies while starting to fix it up.They must have loved the place, but the father was an airline pilot and he died young. I don't know if in a crash or heart attack or what.But they buried him on the property, and capped it with a concrete slab. Then it appears they haven't been back since. I talked with the daughter a few years back when her mom had just died and she was inheriting the place. I guess the family had never recovered financially and were able to keep paying taxes on the place to hold it and could never get enough money ahead to come back other than brief graveside visits.She sold the property within a year.I read stories in things too, sometimes as I demo a place for remo I see signs, like one place that had a lot of chinese debris in the attic and servants quarters area - I imagine they had Chinese immigrant household staff 80-90 years ago or so.Another time - a trip of a cemetery needing R&R with my wife and we saw a family plt with all the stones lined up from about 1813 or sometime around there.about five children died thru course of the winter, every 3-4 weeks. Then in March, a newborn un-named baby died, then the mother a week later. Was it dysentery, cholera, smallpox, or hunger?????father's stone showed he lived another thirty years or something.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
those were great pics... thanksMike Hussein Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
I'm curious to see more pictures of the barn as well. It's a shame that it's gotten that bad; I love those old barns.
Mike, I'll try to get a picture of a "growing" greenhouse in Huron, Oh. Will have to wait till I go to a ball game and pickup a fan by there.
A formerly large growing operation, still growing through the greenhouse are native flora.A Great Place for Information, Comraderie, and a Sucker Punch.
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
http://www.quittintime.com/
I saw that picture and was transfixed. It reminds me of the house in "Fight Club" if anyone has seen that movie.
Jon Blakemore RappahannockINC.com Fredericksburg, VA
Mike,
Here is one that I like...it is in extreme disrepair..but not exactly falling down
here is a link to more of the same
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rodmurrow/sets/72157611854138717/show/with/394915520/
Very well built home...One of the photos shows rain screen furring strips!
BTW..how do you get your photos to "show" in the window
Edited 3/12/2009 6:13 pm by homedesign
interesting how the nails have moved-out over the years.
Brings a tear to the eye, and a strong desire to know it's history.
that siding is a great leak source...... like a tousand gutters
View ImageMike Hussein Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
And they might want to do a little work on the roof.
jt8
lotsa worse things happen to better people than me every day. --Snort
Here is a link to a urban explorers site with galleries of all types of abandoned structures (mainly institutional and industrial). Wonderful photography and forum.
http://www.opacity.us/locations/
There is some rediculously beautiful architechture in Detroit.
Most of it looks like your pics/link now.
It is sooooo sad. At one point it was one of the most oppulent cities, waaaay too much money, the center of the free world. The leaders of industry centered there and built some amazing structures (beautiful commercial - and awe inspiring residential ). All in, or close to one locale. It really is a national treasure going lost...
Even the people who realise the assets as the treasure that they are cant push back the tide....
Damn shame.Remodeling Contractor just on the other side of the Glass City
Wow, great link...although it leaves me sad to see some beautiful details and work fading away.
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The ironwork in this one grabbed me.
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Oh forget it, too many there. This post alone would be 3 pages deep with all the pics.
Yeah, there's a barn about a half-mile from here that's been slowly disassembling itself over the past several decades. 30 years ago it had a slight swayback, but now the center ridge is touching the ground.
Near to it is an old trailer (OK, "modular home") that over the same period went from occupied to just a pile of boards. I don't know when it totally collapsed (it's kind of hidden in some woods in the summer), but I'd guess that a windstorm collapsed it after it began leaning.
I've read claims that unoccupied buildings tend to disintegrate fairly rapidly, almost as if living in a building gives it "life" and the building "dies" when unoccupied for even a few months.
That looks like the ones I remodel.
Before or after?
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
Sometimes after
Looks like some I've lived in... looks are deceiving <G>
http://www.tvwsolar.com
I went down to the lobby
To make a small call out.
A pretty dancing girl was there,
And she began to shout,
"Go on back to see the gypsy.
He can move you from the rear,
Drive you from your fear,
Bring you through the mirror.
He did it in Las Vegas,
And he can do it here."
I have lived in some dumpy places too.
One I had to go through the bedroom to get to the kitchen.
<I have lived in some dumpy places too.>We always had houses with character... kids let a window slam (the weight ropes had long ago rotted), sash took the window sill to the bottom plate... good thing the place had asbestos siding... it's still standing<G>http://www.tvwsolar.com
I went down to the lobby
To make a small call out.
A pretty dancing girl was there,
And she began to shout,
"Go on back to see the gypsy.
He can move you from the rear,
Drive you from your fear,
Bring you through the mirror.
He did it in Las Vegas,
And he can do it here."
Used to be a barn between my house and my work on which a tree had fallen dead center, smashing the ridge beam. Took about three years for it to finish collapsing.
Took this last winter and forgot about it. No, it's not one of my projects.
wow.. i'd have to guess that the left side is uplifted some how
View ImageMike Hussein Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
Drove by this morning to take a better look. The ridge of left side is higher than that of the main house. So I don't think the left side got lifted; I think the ridge sagged and broke.