Authentic Restoration Detroit

A little bit of everything, Detroit or otherwise.

This is a Flint Faience tile bathroom floor on another house on Muirland in Detroit.  Flint Faience was a short lived company from 1921 to 1933 and operated by the AC Spark Plug Company in Flint, MI, as a means to keep their kilns constantly in hot operation when spark plug orders were not enough to do so, as constant hot and cold cycles caused premature kiln failure.  Once General Motors purchased AC, the days for Flint Faience were numbered, and by 1930 GM shut the operation down.

Meanwhile, Briggs Manufacturing, who made auto bodies for Chrysler, Packard, etc, (Walter O. Briggs also owned the Detroit Tigers), during the Great Depression began manufacturing a line of Bathroom Fixtures:  Briggs Beautyware. They stamped metal bathtubs and sinks, made toilets and bathroom fixtures.  This bathroom still exists in a limestone GE model home  built in 1934 on Evergreen in Detroit. That’s a Briggs Diamond tub fixture.

Here’s a really cool soapstone laundry tub on Atkinson

These stadium chairs came from Tiger Stadium.  They were salvaged during the renovation of the late 70’s.  Originally names Briggs Stadium, these chairs probably date to the ballpark’s expansion in the early thirties.  They are mahogany, and based on the number sequencing, number 31 appears to be an  aisle seat, which probably places this set in one of the grand-stands, my favorite first-come first-served seating anywhere.

Hey, whoever bought this Mott Ironworks sink from Detroit Architectual Salvage (Grand River and 15th) in June 2013…….YOU FORGOT THE LEGS!!  They are still there, and that chrome piece that covers that hole is replaceable.