Lloyd Lewis sections
That Pew photo shows doors with jambs that are perpendicular to the canted walls. It's a good looking detail the way it registers the stepped paneling geometry. In the Lloyd Lewis photo, the door at the end of the hall appears to be a conventional flush door similar to the Pew examples. Doors that fall in the same plane along the length of the reverse battered wall is where things get trickier.
Speaking of the canted walls, I suppose they are indicated on the floor plans at the point where the walls intersect the floor. If so, in order to depict the actual dimensions of the ceiling, the reflected ceiling plan would need to show the walls in different locations (presumably where they intersect the ceiling plane).
Speaking of the canted walls, I suppose they are indicated on the floor plans at the point where the walls intersect the floor. If so, in order to depict the actual dimensions of the ceiling, the reflected ceiling plan would need to show the walls in different locations (presumably where they intersect the ceiling plane).
Just so. One of the many complications that Wright's fertile imagination introduces into the lives of apprentices, builders, and observers !
I have seen few reflected ceiling plans among the Usonian drawings. Examples include the wonderful Jacobs I ceiling -- though the drawing I saw may have been made by others, after the fact ? -- the New York Exhibition house, and the Wall and Bell/Feldman hexagonal ceilings, quite similar . . .
SDR
I have seen few reflected ceiling plans among the Usonian drawings. Examples include the wonderful Jacobs I ceiling -- though the drawing I saw may have been made by others, after the fact ? -- the New York Exhibition house, and the Wall and Bell/Feldman hexagonal ceilings, quite similar . . .
SDR
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Roderick Grant
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I seem to recall Mr. Jacobs noting in his book that the ceilings were plain plywood (similar to the Goetsch Winckler ceiling), and that the board and batten ceiling was screwed to the plywood by Mr. Jacobs himself a few years after initial occupancy. The car in the carport we determined is a '37 or '38 Willys, so given this picture, the board and batten ceiling was installed after the Fall of 1936 when Willys introduced this body style.
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outside in
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the first ceiling in the Jacobs House was made from celotex, which in its day was a compressed paper product. In time, Mr. Jacobs requested a pattern for a wood ceiling from Wright, which he then provided, and used board and battens to match the walls. Jacobs applied the wood directly over the celotex.
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Roderick Grant
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Herb Jacobs writes (p 59), "And Wright, seeing the house the center of so many eyes [sic], naturally wanted t make it more attractive with a paneled ceiling covering the fiberboard, and a better quality of wood for the outside fascias."
The work seems to have been done in 1939; Jacobs mentions working on "the nine-foot living room exterior, balancing on the top of my five-foot stepladder, and using a brace and bit to drill holes and sink the long screws." Madness ! Earlier: "I leaned the hard way, by having boards fall on my head, that it's a good idea to support sixteen-foot boards on both ends, and probably in the middle, too, if one intends to fit them into the batten grooves -- and have them stay in place long enough to drive home a few two-and-a half-inch cadmium-plated screws. I had no miter box, but learned to become rather fair at marking a forty-five-degree angle with a T-square abd sawing, where the pattern turned corners." We spent most of the winter on the paneling . . ."
The process would have been like installing tongue-and-groove flooring, but upside down -- and with the extra trouble of holding the board in place and the batten too, which was where the screws were placed.
Page 59 also details the switch, in February of 1940, from steam heat to forced hot water ". . .which [Wright] was already specifying in the second generation of Usonian houses." The system, which worked at Wingspread where the steam was under seventy pounds of pressure, took a long time, at zero to five pounds, to work its way from the source to the living room, and thence to the bedroom wing, with the return ends of the pipes cool to the touch, a sure sign that the system wasn't working properly. At the same time they switched from oil, as a fuel, to coal, because it was cheaper.
SDR
The work seems to have been done in 1939; Jacobs mentions working on "the nine-foot living room exterior, balancing on the top of my five-foot stepladder, and using a brace and bit to drill holes and sink the long screws." Madness ! Earlier: "I leaned the hard way, by having boards fall on my head, that it's a good idea to support sixteen-foot boards on both ends, and probably in the middle, too, if one intends to fit them into the batten grooves -- and have them stay in place long enough to drive home a few two-and-a half-inch cadmium-plated screws. I had no miter box, but learned to become rather fair at marking a forty-five-degree angle with a T-square abd sawing, where the pattern turned corners." We spent most of the winter on the paneling . . ."
The process would have been like installing tongue-and-groove flooring, but upside down -- and with the extra trouble of holding the board in place and the batten too, which was where the screws were placed.
Page 59 also details the switch, in February of 1940, from steam heat to forced hot water ". . .which [Wright] was already specifying in the second generation of Usonian houses." The system, which worked at Wingspread where the steam was under seventy pounds of pressure, took a long time, at zero to five pounds, to work its way from the source to the living room, and thence to the bedroom wing, with the return ends of the pipes cool to the touch, a sure sign that the system wasn't working properly. At the same time they switched from oil, as a fuel, to coal, because it was cheaper.
SDR
Yes. It looks like the paired 2 x 12s over the brick piers are intermittent between the joists carried by the piers; they in turn carry the remaining joists
in the house and on the deck. The pair of 2 x 12 rim joists at the outer edge of the deck are continuous and carry the intermittent joists. Or so I imagine . . .
See immediately below. There is a horizontal unit line running down the middle of the joist, confusing the view. On the cantilevered portion of the
section, the horizontal lines running below the "perforated boards" might be the elevational view of the end return of the deck parapet boards ?
[/img]

in the house and on the deck. The pair of 2 x 12 rim joists at the outer edge of the deck are continuous and carry the intermittent joists. Or so I imagine . . .
See immediately below. There is a horizontal unit line running down the middle of the joist, confusing the view. On the cantilevered portion of the
section, the horizontal lines running below the "perforated boards" might be the elevational view of the end return of the deck parapet boards ?
[/img]
[/img]