In the early 1980s, my husband and I looked at an Aladdin Shadowlawn for sale in Chesapeake, Virginia. We both fell head-over-heels in love with the solid-oak bookcase colonnades between the living room and dining room.
It was just last week that I learned that, in the early 1900s, these enchanting built-ins were known as “Permanent Furniture.”
“Permanent furniture” (built-in cabinetry) was a brilliant concept. The more “permanent furniture” present in a house, the less “temporary furniture” the new homeowners would need to purchase. And all these built-ins really did make best-possible use of small spaces.
To read more about permanent furniture, click here or here.
As always, thanks to Norfolk historian and librarian Bill Inge for sharing his wonderful old architecture books with moi!
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More than 30 years ago, we looked in the windows of this Aladdin Shadowlawn in Chesapeake, Virginia (near Chesapeake Square Mall) and caught a glimpse of the solid oak built-in bookcase colonnades and fell hopelessly in love. There's something about "permanent furniture" in old houses that still makes me swoon.
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The Aladdin Shadowlawn came with beautiful built-in bookcase colonnades (1919 catalog).
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These colonnades appeared in the Sears Roebuck "Building Materials" catalog (1921). Pretty basic and very plain and no shelving or bookcases. And who's Carlton? My guess is that he's someone that wasn't well liked at Sears. Maybe it started out as a practical joke. "Let's name those really boring colonnades after that boring guy, Carlton who never does anything but stand around and look goofy," and before they knew it, the $34 colonnades were listed in the Sears catalog as "Carlton Colonnades."
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For $82.50, you could buy a colonnade that actually had a practical purpose (unlike Carlton).
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The Sears Osborn featured these bookcase colonnades with either wooden muntins or leaded glass doors (1919).
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No sooner had I returned Bill Inge's 1927 Builders' Woodworking catalog than he loaned me this little treasure, "Building With Assurance; Morgan Millwork." It was full of - colonnades! It was published in 1923.
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And the first page of the Colonnade Chapter offered some interesting insights as to why we love colonnades: "It's an imitation of nature itself." BTW, check out the lovebird logo.
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Nice way to dress up a doorway!
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These colonnades are simple, but quite attractive. That rug looks like a trip hazard, though. The dining room furniture looks like it came out of a dollhouse. The proportions are skewed.
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Apparently Morgan had their own line of Carlton Colonnades.
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Much more ornate, and bigger bookcases, too. The original caption reads, "This Morgan standardized design offers a fine opportunity for tasty decoration with jardinieres, statuary, bric-a-brac, etc." I had to look up "jardinieres," because I've read a lot of books in my life but I have never seen that word. Turns out, "jardinieres" is a female gardener, allegedly. I'm not sure that even the most progressive 1920s housewife would be too keen on the idea of using built-in bookcases to store female gardeners.
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This one's my favorite: Rugged, sturdy, spacious and a built-in desk, too.
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That desk is pretty cool, even if he does have a lot of bills hidden inside of it.
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Another beautiful colonnade, but in use as a china hutch!
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A real-life bookcase colonnade in a Sears Hazelton in Oklahoma. (Photo is copyright 2010 Rachel Shoemaker and may not be used or reproduced without written permission. No foolin'.)
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To read about the Sears Magnolia we found in West Virginia, click here.
To read more about built-ins, click here.
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Thank you for your hard work on this wonderful site!
We are under contract on a 1912 house that I am fairly certain in a Sears home (I have just ordered LOADS of books (including yours) to make sure.
It has a floor plan almost identical to The Hazelton (Model Nos. C2025, C172) with large, round columns between the chamber and the parlor as well as between the parlor and the dining room that look very similar to your image in the above post.
As soon as the house is officially ours, I would love to send photos to you!
I just found this website. I have,what I think, is a Sears bungalow, and am renovating it.
I am interested in building wooden colonnades in the arts and crafts style.
Any suggestions as to finding construction blueprints,parts list and the type of lumber used in the early 20th Century colonnades?
Does Sears keep old blueprints for these and other parts of a Sears Homes?
Thanks for any help you can offer.