Cost of lumber in 1933 for great grandpas 12x40 "museum" building

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trekrok

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So this is a building my great grandpa built and is still standing on the property I'm at. He bought the "kit" as shown on the reciept and the rest is trim he added. It's 12x40 w/ 10ft walls, cedar shingle siding, a door and window on the front, a large window on the back and 4 windows on each side. Later it was referred to as his museum building as he filled it with taxidermy, primitives, Indian artifacts and his various collections. Local schools would actually occasionally take field trips to it and he would show them some of the stuff. He would have built this when he was 23. Several years later he went to California for a few years to find work and his brother did him a "favor" and painted it white and the family had been dealing with repainting it regularly ever since. Some day I'd like to redo the siding back to raw cedar shingles but couldn't imagine the cost to do that nowadays. He originally built it about a mile from here, then when they bought this property they moved it here. It comes apart in the middle so they moved each 12x20 half individually then put it back together.

For those of you who saw my paint sprayer thread, this building is the main reason I asked about them. It's due for another paint job and I couldn't imagine doing it by hand with a brush even though that's how it's been done for decades.

There's no real point to this thread, just thought it was cool and that my grandpa still had the receipt from when his dad built it nearly 90 years ago.
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View attachment 311754
Based on line one, which I assume is 1 gallon of white lead paint, I'd wear a mask when prepping.

Cool post, thanks for putting it up.
 

Raido Free America

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'Select white pine' for under 6¢ per board foot.

I like the way he see the windows on the side up high. Get light, retain wall space.
People used to open the top panes of windows, especuially on the upper floors, and the lower windows on the bottom floor, the hotter air rising created a natural draft in hot weather. Off subject I know, but we went to Petterersburg, VA. Civil War Battlefield recently, the battle where the Union tunneled under Confedrerate lines, and set of a huge explosion. The tunnel entrance is still there. This tunnel was two, three hundred yards long, and they couldn't dig air vents in the no mans land, without exposing what they were up to. They dug one vent 50 feet in, and built a air duct, out of lumber, 12x12, or so, as the tunnel got deeper, they built a fire at the only vent, hung a tarp between the fire at the vent, and the tunnel opening, forcing air to be sucked through the air duct, to supply the fire, and the up draft created by the heat! The kept extending the air duct, as the tunnel got deeper! Is that clever, or what? Ther Union troops that dug this were coal muiners from Pennsivana, and apparently used this in their work? I have been a Civil War Buff for 50 years and never heard this before.
 

GeneW

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Check out Kens Karpentry on Youtube. Scroll through the list of his videos where he talks about cost and quality.

If I wanted a small building made, I'd want this guy to come to Oklahoma and do it.

I really like his videos. LINK THING TO CLICK He has done a LOT of videos, keep scrolling through them.
 

adamsredlines

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Here's another fun one that was with the reciept from above
In January 1934 he bought a new 1933 Chevy. Supposedly the car is still around the area in the trees at someone's farm. I need to go see if it is and maybe drag it home for some yard art.

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joegrizzy

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Here's another fun one that was with the reciept from above
In January 1934 he bought a new 1933 Chevy. Supposedly the car is still around the area in the trees at someone's farm. I need to go see if it is and maybe drag it home for some yard art.

View attachment 311906
wow spent twice as much on a car as the building! now THAT'S something for today's economy lol.

not sure about your lot and your family's situation/history, but i'd wager that looks a LOT like a typical "mother in law" house. any ideas why he built it?

and also: one of the services i offer is restoring, color correcting, or colorizing old photos. I had an afternoon off and decided to go for it because i was curious what it looked like with the cedar shingles and these pics are def before it was painted white.

soooo here's a quick freebie!

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