I bought an alleged Sears home last week. My research shows that between the 1920's, all the way to the 1970's Sears sold housing kits that the buyer could assemble at their own lot. Think of it as a model like you built as a kid but on steroids

Turns out I do have a kit home but not a Sears home. I have a Liberty home that later bought out Lewis Company of Bay City, Michigan. Back in the day, Montgomery Wards, Gordon- Van Tine, Aladdin, Sterling, Sears, Lewis/Liberty and others sold these kit homes.

Instead of building plans and blue prints, the blue prints are labeled building instructions. I have a 1946 model which was quite the rage back then as all the GIs were coming back home. I have found that more than a million housing kits were sold so there is a strong chance that others in this group have one. They do make great use of every square inch.

I had the deluxe model back then - it had a toaster built into the wall. That has since been disconnected as i don't trust that old two wire romex wiring on a heat producing appliance. I am keeping the toaster in place - it just isn't hooked up. I have to wonder if there is any extra value in tehse kit houses.

Some people do put extra value on these type homes. In a city near where I used to live there were 2 Sears homes and they were nice. Both of them had the outside walls made from 2 foot by foot metal panels with the edges of each panel rolled in and folded like J metal. These panels were well coated with rustproofing and even after about 100 years showed no rust that I could see (and that's not only pretty good but says a lot. I wish they made cars that were that rustproof, but that would defeat the planned obsolescence ideas. Imagine a car lasting 100+ years! I wish I had my old 57 Chevy again- nice bench seats where my girlfriend could sit next to me instead of the current too small contoured bucket seats where it hurts to sit in them for more than a half hour.) Yes, those Sears houses and that type actually have groups, I think, that appreciate them.

As a former contractor and tradesman I spent most of my working life fixing and building houses, apartment buildings, light commercial and industrial projects. I always liked these kit homes as they were carefully thought out and made to last.

Pennsylvania is, according to a national database, the #3 state for Sears houses with 1963 houses.

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archive.org/details/NewLibertyHomesByLewisMfg.Co/page/n21/mode/1up

I was reading an article recently on the latest trend in DIY building... home kits. I guess it's becoming big business with many of the big box stores jumping on board including Home Depot, Sutherlands, and Menards. Even Amazon and Ebay have DIY Home kits.

I've worked on a couple of actual Sears homes for my clients. I believe that they were originally shipped from the factory by rail & trucked from the depot to the building site.