ID this House! Sears Carlin and Windsor

Sears Carlin in Kalamazoo, Michigan

Recently, while searching real estate listings, I spied what I thought was a model I've seen many times over, the Sears Windsor. On first glance, this house in Kalamazoo, Michigan had all the hallmarks of the Windsor. As I was drafting up a post for my "Sears Homes For Sale" Facebook page, I made sure to note that while this model is often misidentified as the "Carlin", in fact almost all of the hundreds of examples that have been identified to date are actually the "Windsor". I was going to point out some of the easy-to-spot differences between the two models that would show that this was a Sears Windsor. Except as I started reviewing the house more closely, it quickly became apparent that in fact the house in Kalamazoo was not a Windsor, it was a Carlin! To date, only 20 examples of the Carlin have been added to the national database of Sears houses. The house in Kalamazoo provided the perfect opportunity to showcase those differences and help other kit house researchers and homeowners easily determine whether a house is the Carlin or the Windsor. Let's learn to ID these models! 

Sears Roebuck's "Home of the Week"

Over at Sears Homes of Chicagoland, Lara's latest post is exploring examples of advertising for "Modern Homes" from Sears Roebuck. Advertising for the "Modern Homes" program appeared in a number of different formats but the ones I've most frequently come across were ads in newspapers from those parts of the county where Sears sold their "Modern Homes". Thanks to digitization efforts, we've been able to see numerous examples of ads from a number of newspapers. Lara's post reminded me of some advertising I had come across again a few weeks ago while searching old newspapers for articles. These ads from Sears "Home Construction Division" featured a number of "Modern Homes" models. I'm calling these ads the Sears "Home of the Week" series. Let's take a look!