late 19th century timber-balloon hybrid frame melrose street house revealed during demolition

we arrived at the latest house near damen and melrose to salvage foster-munger company interior residential oak wood doors (some with "florentine" pattern glass); a single variegated art glass transom window and beaded hardware likely fabricated by the p.& f. corbin company. the farthest thing from my mind was discovering yet another unique timber-balloon wood frame, hidden within a late 19th or possibly early 20th century chicago house.

once we finished salvaging the interior architectural artifacts, i decided to hang around for a little while longer to document the demolition, and take a peak at the framing method used to construct the house. to my great surprise i discovered large beams with mortise and tenon joints used on both the first and second floors. i've seen timbers in the form of sill plates used in the construction of houses dating to this period before, but to find additional timbers on the second floor was perhaps the first for a house of this age.

the timbers or girts used on the second floor were nearly the same size as the beams used as sill plates resting above a brick foundation. in addition, the use of mortise and tenon joints for each of the corners was nearly identical to the sills. in other words, the beams on both the first and second floors were virtually identical. the dimensional lumber (i.e., studs and joists) was largely consistent with age, but the sills and girts were heavily notched to receive these sawn components. since wire nails were being used as early as the 1880's, i was perplexed yet again when i saw more spikes or cut nails utilized to fasten the framing members.

the aforementioned building materials and methods are more consistent with houses constructed between 1850-1870, which suggests that the house might be a transplant from somewhere else. if that is indeed the case, then dramatic changes and/or alterations must have happened early on - quite possibly when the house was moved there around 1890-1905. this is of course all conjecture based on what was revealed after the early alterations were stripped away during demolition. at the same time, one can certainly entertain the possibility that some houses built during this time period still utilized "old world" methods and materials, in spite of widespread availability of materials, and improved technologies -- designed to do away with incorporating the use of bulky timbers that were both expensive and time-consuming to work with. it's also a little ironic that the house contained mass-produced "cookie cutter" architectural elements acquired from foster-munger, who as early as the 1880's supplied an abundance of materials in all facets of building, when the housing boom needed it most. again, i'm just offering observations based on my extensive time on demolition job sites. i'm sure other theories exist as to why so many findings in the field are anomalous, or contradict the expectations revolving around treatment of materials and methods, based on building journals, books and other pertinent literature of that time.

gargantuan first floor yellow pine wood heavily notched sill plates with mortise and tenon joints:

yellow pine wood second floor girts with mortise and tenon joints: