YOU ARE HERE* OUR MID-CENTURY RAMBLER HOUSE PLANS

Get ready Architecture nerds! Time to geek out about vintage house plans! Ben and I are lucky enough to have the floor plans of our awesome mid-century rambler. They even have the Architect’s notes written on them! For us this is the Holy Grail for the house.

The house was designed by Registered Architect Irwin E. Engler. His office was in the Irwin Building 205 West Lake Street Minneapolis, MN in 1954 when our house was built. I looked to see if his office was still there. It’s a Walgreens now so no such luck on seeing what his office building looked like.

I haven’t been able to find out too much about Engler except that he has a few other buildings and houses around the Twin Cities. The house was built by a couple that had 5 children. I don’t know how they raised 5 kids in this house but they did. Lots of kids livin’ in the vegetable room I guess (see basement floor plan). We are the 4th family to own the house according to the property records.

We received these plans when we closed on the house and we feel like they belong to the house, not to us. Ben and I feel like we are stewards of this house. We will enhance its awesome mid-centuryness and pass on the plans to the next owner. One of the first things that we did was frame the plans and hang them up in our living room. Everytime someone comes over to the house we show them the plans and the “You are here” locations so they can imagine themselves in the house through the plans.

As we were planning out some of our home renovations we have been measuring the house to see how much it had settled and where things might be different. The house is spot on. Nothing has settled. The house dimensions are the exact same as the plans. I knew our house was solid but after 62 years it’s amazing that nothing has changed or moved.

The set is fascinating to us because you can trace where the original owners started and how they changed their minds throughout the process. A few things are crossed out or sketched over in red pencil.

We now know that the scary closet in the basement is called a vegetable room and the lower level bedroom was enclosed sometime after the house was built. The plan shows it open. It’s a bummer that there are no secret passageways because all spaces are accounted for. We feel very lucky to have this history and we will pass this on to the next generation when that comes (not anytime soon. We love it here!)

Check out the house tour to compare these plans to the before and after images of the house or check out the home improvement page for our DIY projects!