home renovations

[Ultrarunner]

Sounds very typical of what I've been running into...

Best advice is to make the home safe and comfortable for you and your family... Amazing what can be done with unlimited resources.

My advice is to not do things piece meal if you can afford it... Doing it once right is always cheaper than having to go back and do it over.

That said... I bought one home from the original owner that bought it in new in 1922... everything was original from the bathroom with claw-foot tub and pink tile, kitchen with original stove, double hung windows, heating and plumbing... it was like stepping back in time.

I went through the home cleaning, painting, replacing window sash cords, facet washers and the like... even saved some very old and good shape wall paper in the Breakfast Nook. The original Bay Window, Matchstick Hardwood, Stone Fireplace and built in hutches and French Doors came out looking great.

Spent a fair amount of time and not a lot of money getting everything ship shape. It sold for the highest price in the neighborhood because it was original... Other homes on the block that had been remodeled several times and "Upgraded" just didn't have the interest from buyers or they figured on remodeling everything. My buyers had lots of 1920's furniture and era clothes and were looking for an authentic home...

Moral of the Story is not all buyers are alike... and old doesn't necessary equate with bad...

[Coldjensens]

I have restored two old houses (1893 & 1836) and assisted in restoration of six others (1912, 1899,1922,192?, 1877, & 1931). I have learned a lot of things about this process. Here are my opinions which may or may not be helpful to you, but I cannot sleep so I will write them out for something to do while I lay here being angry that I cannot sleep.

First. Get lots of different advice. Many times the advice to you will be "rip it out and replace it" when you really do not need to. If you follow all of that advice, you will provide a lot of employment for workers, but you will also spend two or three times what the house is worth.

Figure out wheter you want to restore or remodel. Do you want to maintain the historic integrity of the house, or "update" everything. Keep in mind updating only works for a few years, and then it is dated. For example, an antique kitchen will always be quaint, and updated kitchen will be out of date in five years. However an antique kitchen will cost more and will include some inconveniences and/or risks. People were not as obsessive as we are today.

Our first restoration project had knob and tube wiring. We got lots of different advice from rip it out to leave it alone. The house had a newer 100 amp panel. After doing some research we choose the "leave it alone" path with that house. We checked all of the connections (this is where you get heat) and put the ones that we could into boxes. In a few places, we put in all new circuits, because the existing was inadequate. We we put GFI outlets in all of the rooms. We did lean that if you mess with knob & tube wiring, you will probably end up replacing the entire circuit. It is not practical (and can be dangerous) to connect knob & tube to romex. It is done, but should not be. Everything we did was checked out by an electrician and declared to be fine. It was also insepcted by the city electrical inspector. It is still in the house. We know several other people who did the same thing.

Two people that we helped with restoring their home hired an electrician who basically took a chain saw to the walls and ripped trenches in the plaster everywhere. The cost of the wiring was peanuts compared to the cost of repairing the damage. The loss of historical character was not measurable.

I hang out in groups related to old house restoration, I have heard this story dozens of times. Many people simply will not allow an electrician (or plumber) near their old house without references and examples of old house jobs from the past.

Three other people that we helped hired good electricians who did minimum damage to the walls and did a very nice job.

In our current house I did all of the wiring in the old part of the house. I did nto trust an electrician to do the work the way I wanted it done (minimum damage). It took me four times longer than an electrician would have and I used more wire than they would have (re-routing to avoid making holes), but I did very minimal damage.

We had to build a kitchen addition and we finished he basement. We had an electrician do the wiring in the new part of the houseand the basement. I put in over 2 miles of wire. I put in the wiring, boxes, fixtures switches (push button reproduction switches), and outlets. I added outlets and switches in many rooms. In two places I left the knob & tube wirriing from the switch to the cieling fixture. It wooud do too much damage to remove and replace it. It is no big deal to connect a romex circuit to a swith and the knob & tube to the otherside of the switch. You need special connectors for the neutral. When the house was inpected, I had two correction items, The professional had seven. I ended up doing some of the correction items myself. The professional also had some lapses of common sense in locating switches or outlets. I had to relocate some of those even though they were acceptable to the inspector, they were not practical in the location used.

The professionals installed the panel. It was a complicated panel installation becuase we have a back up generator that covers 16 circiuts in a seperate panel in addition to the main panel. We filled the 100 amp panel for the generator (with one circuit held in reseve for later additions) and nearly filled the main (200 amp) box. We also have a 100 amp sub-panel in the carraige house and another subpanel for the pool filter and chlorine generator. I wired parts of the carraige house. I also installed all of the outlets switches and fixtures throughout the entire house (3 way switches can be a pain to figure out. 4 way are easier). It was a big job.

So yes, you can learn to do it yourself. You will need a couple of good books and you will need to understand the electrical code (not only the rules, but the reasons for the rules). You will need some good advisors as well. Your local electrical inspector cna be a good source of information. You may have to pay him a little for advice, especially if he needs to come look at your house.

As far as your tile, that will be difficult. It will not be cost effective to have somone chip the tile off. You could try that yourself. If you hire someone, they will just remove the wall to the studs and replace it with drywall (greenboard) or tile backer board. Chipping off the tile is too time consuming and would cost too much to be practical for professional work. If you are anal about maintaining the historical character of your house, then you may want to chip it off and preserve the plaster. You will have to re-do the top coat of the plaster. You may want to have someone look at the tile. Is it historic? If it is some botched 1970s home improvement prohject, then you will probably want to remove it. If it is historic tile, then you may want to reconsider.


I never understand why peopple buy an old house and then completely modernize it. If you want a modern house, buy a new one. You could even have one built to match the style of historic architecture that you like (it would probably cost less in the long run).


With an old house, you will have to make a lot of decisions about safety issues. old houses were not built to modern codes. Many do not have fireblocking in the walls. Doi you want to re-do the framing? Old houses do not have insulated windows. You can either seal them and use storm windows in the winter, or replace them (usually with cruddy looking vinyl windows). Some people even mout modern siding over the old shiplap. At times, after re-wiring, re-plumbing, modernizing the bathrooms and kitchen, replacing the windows and covering the siding, it is no longer an old house.

One other note. If you do re-plumb, do it before you restore walls and floors. If you use PEX instead of copper, it can often be threaded though the walls like wire and do little or no damage. Be sure that the plubmer knows what they are doing. I have seen a dozen or more houses with structural damage caused by idiot plumbers cutting trhough beams without knowing or thinking about what the beam is for.

Good luck with your project. It is a labor of love, not an investment. Keep in mind that every project grows and grows. Removing the tile, will probably evolve into a complete remodel of the bathroom. Remember, that once you remove something, there is no putting it back. Also you can use true antique materials salvaged from homes that are being destroyed, but it will probably end up being more expensive. There are some good reproduction materials available for plumbing and light fixtures, but a lot of it is kitchy half a$$ed attemps at sort of copying an older style. Also, before you begin find out what style your house is and find appropriate materials. Nothing looks worse than a carftsman home filled with queen anne fixtures and decorating, or something similar.

Do not let contractors take control of your project and dictate to you what must or should be done. Leanrn and figure it out for yourself. Get multiple opinions. Otherwise, you may end up replacing the entire house. Join a club or two, subscribe to old house journal and learn what is actually necessary from people who have done this before. You will make a lot of mistakes and bad choices, get help to make as many goodd decisiuons as possible. '

Most of all, do what appeals to you. It is your house. Do not worry about resale. If you bought this house as an investment, you probably made a mistake. Old houses areusually bad investments, but they are wonderful homes. For a while it might seem awful, but in the long run it will be worth it.

[VivaLaEvie]

I agree with Cold Jensen's -- don't ruin a true old bathroom, but if you've got some 70's starburst bathroom tiles on your hand (I do in the old house we are looking to buy), but don't have a lot of money -- you can paint them to make it livable until you have enough money to do a proper remodel. It is a cheap patch that will just make it look nicer until you are ready for a renovation.

[Cosmic]

Anybody saying that stuff is Ok should understand all the ramifications.

First it is not a "Standard" type wire. It varies as to exactly what you got. Lots of it is substandard purity copper. In general higher resistance than modern romex wire. Some of it actually under goes a form of rot. You can cut thru it with a pair or dykes and it will not be bright and shinny inside. You can find some that is undersized. Sort of like a guage #13 if you want to call it that, has less diameter than modern #12. but is used in those type applications. The insulation is not the same on all of it. Lots of it will crumble if you just touch it. There was some real crummy stuff being used in like the years 1928 - 1930's.

Why anybody wants to save any of it is beyond me. Just too dangerous. The olde boy before me in my present house had 4 electrical fires that I found. Three occurred in between the joists in the basement, splices and balls of tape as big as your fist. One was a real hot one in a steel switch box that he just abandoned. One very, very lucky fellow. I am talking a house built in like 1920. Just about zero upgrades before I got it.

In my area for the local TV station, their broadcast area covers a bunch of counties. Seems like every night on the news there is a house fire. Lots of them electrical in nature as the cause. Folks are dying in them, mostly these old houses with all that old knob and tube wiring. No way would I ever have one inch of that stuff in a house I owned.

You do not have to rip out huge sections of walls to run new wiring. Just chop out enough for removal of a single lathe. What I did in walls that I wanted to save, especially in outside walls that were full of blown in insulation. The patch afterwards you can not tell I even was in there. In this rehab I did not do a total gut, some walls are the old plaster, some are new with sheetrock. You can't tell which is which, once I got done. All the wood work was removed, refinished and replaced. Saving old plaster just for the sake of saving old plaster also makes no sense to me. Most old houses the plaster rots around all the window openings.

Also you can not tell what is behind all those lovely old walls without some sort of inspection holes. The old house I just did over, every room had some sort of surprise, could never fully understand it without some demolition.

The same goes for fire stopping. Many old houses have zero fire stopping. You need to open up walls to get it done proper. Like mine, there are a few areas that are impossible to really get at and do it as you should. Gets to be one of those situations where you never can allow a fire to get started in the first place. These houses burn quick and hot.

I'm not a fan of old houses. The last thing I ever want to do is stand in another old original bath or kitchen. Sorry the thrill went a long time back. I hope I've done my last one.

[Ultrarunner]

Cosmic... some good points.

Electrical Fires due to home wiring are quite rare here in the SF Bay Area... unless you're one of the unlucky souls that lives in a home wired with Aluminum Wiring... quite a few tracts and condos with that around here in the South Bay.

Most electrical fires seemed to be traced to faulty appliances and extension cords... especially used with portable heating devices.

The local Utility still uses lots of Knob and Tube on Utility Poles... new installs are tending to underground.

I attended a Fire Demonstration back in my school days... a chimney fire spread to the roof shakes and did extensive damage... the home was a total loss. The amazing thing is all of the original Knob and Tube Wiring was still functional and intact and this is in a burnt out hulk of a house. The fire department energized the circuits and lights in all the rooms still worked

Just an observation...