My Only Blog With an “R” Rating!

Before you start reading this, please usher the children into another room and/or tell them to cover their ears and hum. Sears only offered two models of kit homes that had a sink in the closet. One was their fanciest house (“The Magnolia”) and the other...

Strathmore + Willard = Strathard?

* * * * * * If you know the precise address of this house, please send it along. It’s in Norwood, Ohio and the street number is 2215 (visible in the photos above). All I need now is the street’s name! Update! Dale Haynes (from our Sears House Facebook...

Peace Pipes and Fourplexes: The Calumet

The Calumet is a rare Sears kit house that was offered for a brief time in the late 1910s and early 1920s. Sears did offer a few apartment buildings (yes, as kits), and the Calumet was one of them. My favorite feature of the Sears Calumet is the wall-bed, and the...

Schadenfreude or Mudita?

The Germans call it schadenfreude.  Here in Virginia, we call it “The Crab Theory.” Schadenfreude means – quite literally – delighting in the misfortune of others. I came across this wonderful word when I was writing my book, The Ugly...