Really old house in Sweden Karlskrona (LOTS of pics)

[fredriksam]

Last pictureis from the laundry room. The washing machine was bought in february 2021 and workd very good. However if you look closely to the picture you also see a metal top loading washing machine. That one doesnt work and me and the friend with me worked hard to get it out from the laundry room.

That machine was to say the least, not automatic. First you had to fill the machine with proper water. Then turning on a thermostat, watching the heat rise. Turn off thermostat when temperatures right. slide a button (Not seen in picture), to make motor going. After a while empty the water and refill again of course for rinses. No spinning in this machine.

There used to be a separate spin dryer beside the machine but that had failed so it wasnt there anymore. The metal machine weighed ALOT i can say.

Hopeyou enjoyed the pictures and all that was going on in this house. An odd experince for me.

Actually the fine dining room seemed even haunted. It was a weird feeling being in there in that room.

 

[ozzie908]

Fascinating to see how houses are made in other countries ..

I do so hope you were able to save those wonderful Chandeliers in the lounge?

What will become of the place once you have cleared it?

Thank you for sharing with us.

Austin

 

[foraloysius]

Thank you Fredrik for sharing those pictures. What a pity that it ended up so run down. Maintenance is everything we can see here again.

BTW, what brand is that old dishwasher?

 

[circlew]

Interesting house; looks like it will make a nice home for someone after a good bit of work. 1941 isn't considered a "very old" house over here, as the are many built in the 1800's in existence. A real shame they wanted to throw so much out, as most could have been cleaned successfully. I think I would have made them an offer to purchase all that remained after everything they wanted was removed.

 

[petek]

That was very interesting. It looks like it was a really fine house. What a shame though that it has deteriorated so much. The roof must have been leaking for years from the look of it. A friend of mine lives in an old house of at least 100 years and is clueless on maintenance. He has let his house deteriorate in much the same way with the ceiling and wall paint peeling off. He didn't even know he had leaks in the roof and finally last year had it replaced.It's not that he couldn't afford to have it done, he just didn't know what to do and he hates to spend money. I don't even like to go in and visit anymore it's that bad.

 

[fredriksam]

pulltostart: i agree that without the damages this house would be very good indeed. Probably well built to tand long time. Newer buildings can also be good but the question is if they would still stand still after 60-70 years.

the thing that it was so much that went to the dump has two reasons.

1 their new elderly home consist of 3 rooms plus toilet. Its about 85 square meter. Not even the half would fit in there because the old house was over 160 square meters so big difference there.

2 many of the furniture from the dining room and living smelled abit of mold. We helped them clean the sofa coating in washing machine to get rid of the smell. Some other furniture were cleaned with dishwasher soap and such to get rid of the smell.

The books were throwed away because they were old and no one wants to have such books any more. The woman in the family couldnt read anymore either because she has slight alzimers and forgets what she just read.

The doors in the house seemed very heavy indeed and with great wood too. They were of course left there. All top light are also still there.
Cool that you liked the tour.

ozzie908: well the chandeliers are still in the house because often lamps in the ceiling and such are left for next one to move in.

The place is cleared from the relatives stuff and they have moved into a eldery home.

What will happen to the house i dont know. I hope someone will fix it up so people can live there. If it wasnt water damaged it wouldnt be hard to sell this place for example, a big family.

They would probably change the electric lines in the house too as well because these were really old and unsafe.

 

[fredriksam]

foraloysius: iTs an Electrolux Dishwasher. Age undknown but probably from late 60´s. The inside had plastic laminat with only regular metal underneath. I saw no rust in there but the owners said it leaked alot and blowed the fuses so probably leaking somewhre inside i guess.

 

[maytag85]

Definitely a mid century modern home. What would make this home complete would be a vintage washer and dryer set : )

 

[foraloysius]

There is a vintage washer in the basement, right from the modern one. It's the stainless steel thing you can only see partly.

 

[foraloysius]

The old washing machine in the basement appears to be a Bohus tvättmaskin.

Pictures of this machine and some other classics on this page:

https://tvattakta.wordpress.com

[this post was last edited: 1/5/2022-09:40]

 

[vacerator]

It's older than mid century,

but has charm, and potential. Seems in a suburban area. Some plaster work, paint, new decor, keeping the nice light fixtures, updated maechanicals, if needed, and new appliances.
The entertainment or recreation space as we call it could remain, or be used for anything.

 

[foraloysius]

Without pictures from the outside it's hard to determine what style it really is. In the 1930's a movement started that was called functionalism. It was the dominant movement for house design after that. Mid century modern is a typical American movement, that style name was unknown in Sweden.

 

[fredriksam]

foraloysius:Sadly i didnt took any pictures of the house outside. However its the last house in a rather big collection of houses. This house is also the oldest because before the 60´s the rest of the place were the newer houses is was just an empty space not used. Te other houses are built between 1965-1970.

I think the old house fits in the category functionalism. Its built in a way that works very well whre the kitchen is and the bathrooms are and all that.

I asked the friend who helped and he says they fixed some electrical stuff in 1968 but hasnt done other electrical fixes or repairs.

You were also very right about the metal washing machine. It was a Bohus. From the start i guess they had the Bohus spin drier as well. I include this post with a good picture of a Bohus machine and a spin drier as well. Both machines were made approx 1956-1958.

 

[iej]

Interesting mid century house. I definitely wouldn’t call it old. It should be really nice once it’s refurbished.

The hatch in the bathroom is a bit mysterious. I know a lot of 1950s houses here used to have the hot press / airing cupboard in a hallway, which had a second door that opened into the main bathroom, so you could easily grab a nicely warm towels… wonder if it could be some kind of heated closet?[this post was last edited: 1/6/2022-20:41]

 

[foraloysius]

More about the old washer in the basement here:

https://www.automaticwasher.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?89261_9~1

 

[iej]

That’s very industrial looking machine, more like what I would have expected to see in a light commercial context than a house.

The so called “utility house” and the “garden city” movement hit here in the 1920s which is when we started to see homes with practical, easy to maintain layouts, but they tended to be probably a lot less practically designed than in Scandinavia or the US in that era, as least from what I’ve read anyway.

Architects of that era here didn’t prioritise the kitchen as a centre piece of urban house design. That only starts to happen in the 1950s and from that point on kitchens tended to get bigger, more practical, often more elaborate and became much more of a focal point around which everything else flows.

Before that, the tendency was to try to make them disappear as a functional room that wasn’t seen as something to show off. It was probably because leading architects tended to have grown up in grand circumstances, with little understanding of how a small/average family home might function beyond a theoretical one, and almost all of them were men. So you ended up with nice Edwardian houses designed by aloof Victorian gentlemen, who tended to see kitchens as an afterthought. They were big into creating garden suburbs though, and you’d find most of the homes are long since remodelled inside, but that’s also why a lot of houses of that era (in their original layouts) also tended to have no laundry room / utility areas, so the laundry machines (when they arrived) tended to originally be in the kitchen, or the garage.

From what I gather Scandinavian design was a few decades ahead of us on that kind of thing.

That’s an example of a 1920s street in suburban on the Northside of Dublin:

[this post was last edited: 1/7/2022-08:40]