February 8, 2020
#355
Gentle reader,
After much thought and due to the likely impending destruction of this house, first shown here:
(Note: It may be easier for you to open the link in another tab or window so that you may be able to correlate inside doors/windows to what we show here.)
We decided to enter the house to document it for posterity. What we found shocked us, and it's not the condition of the house. We found something that was truly sad.
Note: There are NO signs warning against trespassing. I felt strongly about not wanting to enter the house the first time we were here.
Note: There are NO signs warning against trespassing. I felt strongly about not wanting to enter the house the first time we were here.
First, we counted the number of exterior doors, there are SIX. Four on the back, one on the western side and the front door which opens to the great room.
The vaulted ceiling of the great room. How proud the owners must have been. They chose knotty pine to match the walls of the basement.
Looking from the original structure into the great room. Those stairs lead halfway down and out to the back yard the the door into the garage. That is the eastern wall of the attached garage.
The addition of the great room/garage, due to the construction and detail must have cost a LOT of money.
This is the original side of the house. Were it me, I would have had the window removed and made into a pass-through.
I was wrong in my original conclusion that the house was added onto twice. And the square footage the county lists must be for the main floor only.
I was wrong in my original conclusion that the house was added onto twice. And the square footage the county lists must be for the main floor only.
The living room. I deliberately blocked the nasty words of the graffiti. Heavy iron wood stove/insert in this room. Hardwood floors throughout the entire floor, except the kitchen.
That door leads to the attic stairs. Opening on the right is into the dining room. Finished rather than painted wooden trim throughout, which I love.
The most destruction is in the dining room. Senseless. Note the baseboard heater.
I did not know when drywall was invented, but obviously before 1953 which is when the house was built.
We truly wonder WHY the last tenants simply took their clothes and left everything else.
Avocado green stove must have still worked after all the decades. Much newer refrigerator. A carton of eggs on the counter. The stink that they must hold.
Lots of cabinets. It must have been almost a panicked retreat by the people that left so much behind.
Curtains and drapes still in place around the house.
Corner windows are a nice touch. What I thought in the previous article was the kitchen door was not. This is on the back wall of the house and has an elaborate brick steps with ones leading down to a door into the basement directly beneath this door and corresponding porch.
I deliberately blocked all names and addresses on this stack of mail. Could they have been forcibly evicted?
Back into the living room and the attic door. From the outside of the house, it is not evident what we will find.
The only sign of insulation we found anywhere. It must have been a cold home in the winter, thus the multiple wood stoves.
Finding these stairs harked back to the house in Richmond, VA we first moved into in 1974 after I graduated high school. It too was cold in the winter.
There are three chimney shafts in this large chimney.
Note total lack of insulation.
Ornate railing in the attic!
I had to laugh at this box. "2800W(atts) Total Power" Right. The box is huge!
Remember the steel ductwork that was on the outside corner of the house attached to the A/C unit? Here it crosses the attic. To where?
There are beds and mattresses all over the house. I don't want to think what might have gone on them by the "visitors" who vandalized the place.
Wine rack inside the family room. There are empty bottles all over the house of various kinds. Lots of "partying" must have occurred by the visitors. Back into the living room, below.
This built-in cabinet/shelves took my breath away. There are built-in things all over the house. Must have been a wonderful house.
There is a second couch on the porch as well as the dining room chairs and another large mattress.
The one on the porch matches the gray remains of this sectional.
Gee, what do you think they used to break the 1953 window? Down the hall to the other rooms, below.
Based upon the repaired window, perhaps someone was squatting for a while in this room. Not the eyeglasses left behind.
One of the built-in things we found in this bedroom. Perhaps the master?
At first, I thought, shower. But, upon viewing the images, I saw the hot/cold water fittings. Possibly stacked washer/dryer?
The other side of the opening is this master bathroom. And the graffiti is correct.
Hide-a-bed is in another bedroom which overlooks the unique roof over one of the basement doors.
A glance into the backyard above the basement roof I noted in the original article.
Another angle of the same room. Graffiti artist will not become famous with that poor quality.
Large linen closet. I have always loved wood and long ago owned a large house which all of the trim and doors were finished like this.
What may have been the original family room in the basement. Note the dropped ceiling. Brick wall and hearth for the wood stove.
Downstairs bathroom with the heater right where it was needed.
A second bathroom downstairs. See through the window the green from the fiberglass roofed structure outside the western door?
Large oil fired boiler to provide heat for the original house. Iron water pipes which the rest of the house probably has.
Looking out that room's door leads to the back door beneath the fancy roof.
We are now beneath the great room. That is a 36" television. We once thought about getting one that big. But when I tried lifting one in the store, we settled for a 32" model.
What was first seen from the covered doorway on the back of the house.
We will now head back out to the backyard. What we found was not noticed or perhaps understood on our first visit.
Ivy covered tree and swing set that was converted to hold a porch swing.
My wife spotted this wooden box when we arrived. We did not know it's significance then.
A second one on top of the Weber grille, the wooden boxes contain cat cremains.
We had a LOT of rain over the last two days. When we gazed into this box, we wondered what that gray stuff in the bag beneath the rainwater was.
Then it hit us. HUMAN cremains! Yes, someone's deceased relative's remains were left in the house and a "visitor" removed them to the outside. Did they realize what they were?
What remains of a long ago stylish dresser has been in the backyard for a long time.
Many think "FREON" is generic for refrigerant. You know, the chemical which magically cools us off in the summer.
Well, like Kleenex, Xerox, Bandaid and countless other words we think are generic are all in fact brand names.
Freon-11 which is now outlawed was a refrigerant that had a boiling point of 74.79℉ (23.77℃).
I worked on subway car's HVAC systems for decades prior to retiring and we used to use it for cleaning greasy things early on in my career.
New members of the HVAC department were handed a Styrofoam cup and told to fill it with R-11. The 30 gallon drums were laid on their sides with a spigot on one end.
The unsuspecting new guy would fill the cup and before he turned around, the cup was gone and the R-11 hit the floor! Turns out it also dissolved Styrofoam.
On that hopefully funny note, I will end this interior tour of:
A Most Unique Abandoned Home In Northern Virginia
Thank you SO much for reading my humble blog. Your response to the above article is overwhelming!
Scott
February 8, 2020
#355
Aluminum is a great conductor of heat. So, making windows from them was not a good idea.
This doorway intrigued us. You will wonder why too.
Sad signs of the rapid departure of the previous tenants.
That area's use still ponders me.
Calendar is from 2016 and in Spanish.
Some of the light fixtures from long ago.
Another sad reminder of a family that once loved this house.
Now, we journey to the basement of the original structure and the addition.
The knotty pine paneling that was the basis for the look in the great room.
Closet under those stairs. Warning, you will see a lot of mold and mildew downstairs.
A more vertical heater for this room. One of the many doors to the backyard from the basement.
What was the laundry/utility room. Look at all the shelves!
One of two bedrooms downstairs.
This closet is partially beneath the stairs seen in the very first photo of the great room.
That desk is attached to the wall. That is a vanity on the right, the sink has been removed. SO, 1950's.
We will now head back out to the backyard. What we found was not noticed or perhaps understood on our first visit.
Then it hit us. HUMAN cremains! Yes, someone's deceased relative's remains were left in the house and a "visitor" removed them to the outside. Did they realize what they were?
Well, like Kleenex, Xerox, Bandaid and countless other words we think are generic are all in fact brand names.
Freon-11 which is now outlawed was a refrigerant that had a boiling point of 74.79℉ (23.77℃).
I worked on subway car's HVAC systems for decades prior to retiring and we used to use it for cleaning greasy things early on in my career.
New members of the HVAC department were handed a Styrofoam cup and told to fill it with R-11. The 30 gallon drums were laid on their sides with a spigot on one end.
The unsuspecting new guy would fill the cup and before he turned around, the cup was gone and the R-11 hit the floor! Turns out it also dissolved Styrofoam.
On that hopefully funny note, I will end this interior tour of:
A Most Unique Abandoned Home In Northern Virginia
Thank you SO much for reading my humble blog. Your response to the above article is overwhelming!
Scott
February 8, 2020
#355
