Yes! the weekend is here and it’s time for another Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge. I look forward to Randy Seaver’s missions for us every week.

I really like this week’s topic, too:

1)  Do you recall the layout of one of your family homes (a parent’s home, a grandparent’s home, your first home with your spouse/SO, etc.)?  Can you estimate the size of the house and the size of the rooms?  What features were in each room?  Can you draw the floor plan, showing doors, windows, etc.?

Yes, I do recall many details and I’m going to cheat a bit because I’ve written about my beloved home at 49 Summer Street, Passaic, New Jersey a number of times.

Somewhere, I have a hand drawn diagram of the layout of my house, but while looking at Sanborn maps for Passaic, I found my house.

I’ve added notes and rotated the map direction to better fit with the photo above:

This Sanborn map was created in the early 1900s – the house was built in 1899/1900 – and there had been a few structural changes to the house by the time I grew up in it.

The circle at the bottom right is the porch entrance seen in the photo.

The second circle on the map, above the first circle was the entrance and stairs to where my Nana lived. Right where the upper circle is, there was a door on the left that went into my bedroom and if you walked down the narrow hallway, there was a door down to the cellar underneath the stairwell.

If you look at the top of the wrap around porch (the top of the L shape), I’ve drawn in another circle, which was “our” front door to the downstairs area.

The wrap around porch is seen in the photo and along the front and left side of the house. If you entered the downstairs portion of the house from that door, there was a small cubby area with a large window along the outside wall (I’ve drawn it in, as it was apparently added later) and to the right was the small living room. The line I’ve drawn just above the “2 1/2” imprinted on the map separated the living room from what was my bedroom in the front. I’ve added the three windows (two in front and one along the left side) to the map.

The bathroom was along the right side of the house and had a sink, toilet, tub/shower and a window, which I’ve added. The back of the house, which is the top portion of the map, is where my parents’ bedroom was located (left, back) along with the kitchen (right, back).

Apparently, at the time, my parents’ back window was a door which exited to the backyard. That wall had been removed, but my parents did have a walk-in closet which was the front portion of that little room or whatever it originally was.

The stove and washing machine were at the bottom right corner of the kitchen. the sink was along the right wall and had a window looking into the alley between our house and the house next door.

The structure attached to the kitchen was a pantry with a back door into the yard.

The workshop in the top right corner of the drawing later became our garage.

A photographer first lived in the house when it appeared in the 1900 census. I believe the upstairs was meant to be the living area and the downstairs (my bedroom) the photography studio with business rooms in the back.

The layout was very different than Nana’s area upstairs, which was divided into more traditional spaces – dining room, living room, two bedrooms, kitchen and bathroom.

I am not sure of the square footage, but I’d guess it was way less than 1000 square feet – maybe 800 square feet?

Thanks, Randy. I always love writing about 49 Summer Street!