Old-Doors.info Resources to help you appreciate or document your historic house!

Inaugural Blog Post

Seth Hinshaw, 12/28/2018

In this introductory blog posting for the Old-Doors website, I want to share some general things about the website and my new book A Field Guide to American Residential Doors. Having spent all of 2018 researching and writing about doors, I am ready to write about something else for a change! I hope that everyone reading this will check out my door book. It is the first comprehensive history of doors in American history and breaks a lot of new ground in the history of this aspect of our nation's millwork heritage. It provides information on the 300 most common doors found throughout the nation, along with aids for estimating the dates of construction. It will be particularly helpful for architectural historians but will be of interest for anyone who loves architectural history or who owns an old house. In a few days, I will post a PDF containing a portion of the book so you can investigate it as you decide whether to buy. Also if you are interested in the book, you might want to consider signing up for the free drawing. I will be giving away a book near the end of each month. When you sign up, your name will stay in the pot for three monthly drawings (unless of course you win!). I will let you know when your third time has arrived and invite you to sign up again. Remember that the earlier drawings will probably have fewer entries, so your chance of winning is greater the sooner you sign up. I plan to create a "mailing list" soon that you can sign up for. People signing up for the e-mail list will receive periodical notices, summaries of recent blog postings, and announcements of any events that I will be attending in case you would like an autographed copy of the book. Future blog postings will vary in topic and not necessarily be limited to historic doors. As people send me updates on the text of the book, I will write blog posts to make this information available to readers. I will also occasionally write blogs about specific door types and include more detailed information that is found in the book. I also want to add postings on other topics such as door hardware or more generic aspects of architectural history. I hope that this blog will be of ongoing interest to architectural historians. As you will see, my primary interest is conveying information. Right now, professionals in my field don't have a forum for sharing their findings about architectural history, so if anyone has something to share, let me know - I am willing to do guest blogs or interviews.

Earlier blog posts

8/28/2020 Chicago Millwork Supply Company catalog of 1931
10/6/2019 History of Hinkle & Company (1833-1870)
9/17/2019 History of Mulliner Box & Planing Company
6/3/2019 J.R. Quigley Plant, Gloucester City, New Jersey
4/23/2019 Cleveland Cottage Door
4/13/2019 Trenton historic door #2
4/10/2019 Trenton Doors #1
3/6/2019 Pressed Wood Door Knobs
2/23/2019 Gettysburg Doorscape, Part 4
2/18/2019 Gettysburg Doorscape, Part 3
2/12/2019 Gettysburg Doorscape, Part 2
2/9/2019 An Introduction to the Gettysburg Doorscape
1/22/2019 The Blake Latch
1/19/2019 Rare Four-Panel Door of 1890s
1/5/2019 Cast Iron Rim Locks
12/28/2018 Inaugural Blog Post