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I am not talking about sane renovation or restoration, which I am in the process of right now. I am talking about what is done frequently on HGTV where every home, regardless of it's age is made to conform to a certain look. It's a clone look and I think that look has peaked.
There is no sense of whimsey or honor of the past - just rip out, "open concept" and make that house look as though it was built in 2013.
Do I have a problem with people who live in houses built in 2013 or 10? No. not at all. There are plenty. Go buy one.
I do have a problem with ripping out mid century pastel baths or bathrooms from the glamorous 1930s. with solidly built and dramatically tiled arched bath entrances, or making a neo - colonial into an "open floor plan" house.
I don't understand why everything old is automatically "out dated". It's old. Not necessarily in bad taste.
Yes a house should be functional - but I'm not speaking about function. I am talking about waste and the need to rip out everything old or circa the era in which the house was built.
If you hate that era so much, don't buy the house. But please do not destroy American social and architectural history. Every house has a story to tell.
Even a mid century modest ranch with a pink and black bathroom, a formica counter top good hardwood floors, a solid working fireplace flanked by knotty pine paneling and book shelves.
A three bedroom home like that was honored by it's first owners.
In the 1970s everyone hated the bungalow. I mean hated! I didn't but I heard adults speak disparagingly about them. The dark gloomy wood, the linoleum kitchens and the lack of an attached garage,
Then sometime in the late 80s I, who always loved those homes; heard a rumbling of appreciation for them. It was quiet at first, but if you listened you could hear it.
Do I think that will happen to the Mc Mansion ? No. the first reason is most of them won't be standing in twenty years. Same for many homes built in the 1970s and later.
Not so for the earlier middle class tract homes, most of which were built quite well.
I am not suggesting that everyone live in a time capsule house. I don't. I have modern art mixed with antiques and I really hate most Arts and Crafts reproductions. But I do respect the houses style and age.
I do have a problem with ripping out mid century pastel baths or bathrooms from the glamorous 1930s....
Even a mid century modest ranch with a pink and black bathroom, a formica counter top good hardwood floors, a solid working fireplace flanked by knotty pine paneling and book shelves.
While I sort of understand, I'm not sure I can agree with you about pink or pastel bathrooms and knotty pine paneling. A person spends way too much time in a bathroom staring at the walls to not have a color they find appealing, and the pink walls just emphasize that certain areas of the house are designed for women and others are for men, which is stupid and outdated from a sexism perspective, not only a design perspective. Heck, my wife doesn't even like pink!
Also the knotty pine look is fine in small doses, but when the whole room is a light wood color, it's overwhelming. The ground and walls should be distinct in color for human senses to work properly. It's sort of like how they add a altimiter and other gauges to a plane because over the ocean everything is blue and it is disorienting. Modern builder beige walls and beige carpet suffers this same disorienting effect, so wanting to fix it has nothing to do with the past in general.
But the real answer is because it's incredibly expensive and wasteful to destroy houses built near population centers to build ones to current taste. The real option is to remodel homes or to encourage sprawl outwards to where only new stuff can be built. I'll take a wrecked interior over sprawl in terms of environmental impact. Even if you chose sprawl to save these homes, the impact of jobs moving away would leave them to death and abandonment anyways. Look at all the old mansions you can buy in Detroit for example.
Last edited by TheOverdog; 03-13-2013 at 10:13 AM..
Sheena, I agree with you. But TheOverdog has a point, too. I'd rather see an old home remuddled and lived in, than torn down, because all the potential owners decided to build a new house in sprawlsville, instead.
My thoughts are every time I see this, it makes me feel sick.
I do not understand it. Who wants an old house with no charm, or a new house inside an old structure?
THe guy who bought our last house did this. We have meticulously restored it. He said he loved it and loved old houses and he wanted to finsih out the restoration. What he did was cover the maple floors with engineered garbage; remove or partially remove the existing yellow pine moldings and replace them with 3" MDF chunks of wood which he then ran up the walls framing each wall (a semi-modern practice); remove the period light fixutres and replace them with home depot cieling boobs; gut the kitchen including remving the California Cooler cabinet and rpelace it with what looks like a 1950s diner kitchen; put hideous lump tile all over the palce so you cannot walk around the house in your socks. There was quite a lot of other remuddling.
What he learned is he then had an old house with no old house charm so old house afficinados did nto want it and new house afficinados did nto want he. He lost about $500,000 on it. We did nto feel sorry for him, but we did fell sorry for the house, and for the people who ended up with it. I gave them some pictures of how it was when we sold it so they could see what could be done if they wanted to undo the remuddling. THe lady looked at them and said "I want to cry"
I always laugh hen I walk into an old house and see granite counteers and stailess steel all over the place. Then I leave. It is less expensive to restore a neglected historic home than to undo serious remuddling. I can strip and re-glue an re-finish an old panel door for free, but to find a replacement for one that was removed will cost $200 to $600 per door (and then I usually still have to strip, re-glue and refinish it). Replacing turned stairway spindles that were switched for metal once for example will cost round $2000 - $4,000. Removing them, having them tanked to remove paint refinshed and reinstalling them will cost less than $1000 usually.
I do not get the remuddling thing. If you do not like the period finsih, then do nto buy the house. Otherwise people walk into your istoric house and laguh at your temproarily modern interior. (at least laugh on the inside. or maybe it just sikens them. I finally learned to just say nothing when people proudly show me their destruciton of a historic interior. Nothing I can do about it anyway and i am certinaly not going to say "This is nice" SOmetimes I point out the one thing they left unbutchered and comment on how cool it is.)
While I sort of understand, I'm not sure I can agree with you about pink or pastel bathrooms and knotty pine paneling. A person spends way too much time in a bathroom staring at the walls to not have a color they find appealing, and the pink walls just emphasize that certain areas of the house are designed for women and others are for men, which is stupid and outdated from a sexism perspective, not only a design perspective. Heck, my wife doesn't even like pink!
Also the knotty pine look is fine in small doses, but when the whole room is a light wood color, it's overwhelming. The ground and walls should be distinct in color for human senses to work properly. It's sort of like how they add a altimiter and other gauges to a plane because over the ocean everything is blue and it is disorienting. Modern builder beige walls and beige carpet suffers this same disorienting effect, so wanting to fix it has nothing to do with the past in general.
But the real answer is because it's incredibly expensive and wasteful to destroy houses built near population centers to build ones to current taste. The real option is to remodel homes or to encourage sprawl outwards to where only new stuff can be built. I'll take a wrecked interior over sprawl in terms of environmental impact. Even if you chose sprawl to save these homes, the impact of jobs moving away would leave them to death and abandonment anyways. Look at all the old mansions you can buy in Detroit for example.
Putting grantie counters and vinyl windows in those old mansions is not going to make people move back to them. Restoring them might. (If you restored enough of them in one location and had private secruity, trash, fire, and schools.)
While I sort of understand, I'm not sure I can agree with you about pink or pastel bathrooms and knotty pine paneling. A person spends way too much time in a bathroom staring at the walls to not have a color they find appealing, and the pink walls just emphasize that certain areas of the house are designed for women and others are for men, which is stupid and outdated from a sexism perspective, not only a design perspective. Heck, my wife doesn't even like pink!
Also the knotty pine look is fine in small doses, but when the whole room is a light wood color, it's overwhelming. The ground and walls should be distinct in color for human senses to work properly. It's sort of like how they add a altimiter and other gauges to a plane because over the ocean everything is blue and it is disorienting. Modern builder beige walls and beige carpet suffers this same disorienting effect, so wanting to fix it has nothing to do with the past in general.
But the real answer is because it's incredibly expensive and wasteful to destroy houses built near population centers to build ones to current taste. The real option is to remodel homes or to encourage sprawl outwards to where only new stuff can be built. I'll take a wrecked interior over sprawl in terms of environmental impact. Even if you chose sprawl to save these homes, the impact of jobs moving away would leave them to death and abandonment anyways. Look at all the old mansions you can buy in Detroit for example.
Putting grantie counters and vinyl windows in those old mansions is not going to make people move back to them. Restoring them might. (If you restored enough of them in one location and had private secruity, trash, fire, and schools.)
There are certainly SOME PRICE POINTS that justify doing a full "build it better than it originally was" sort of restorative renovation BUT the fact is there are a HECKUVA LOT MORE older homes that were not buit very well in terms of simple things like windows that effectively stop cold air from leaking in during the winter and countertops that are unfortunately all but impossible to effectively clean... Doing those SIMPLE and COST EFFECTIVE (though admittedly not super high on the "charm factor") UPDATES often are very effective at helping to get folks interested in an older home.
Some remuddling happens because of a lack of education. Here are some examples that come to mind:
New window salesmen don't WANT people to know how relatively easy and inexpensive rebuilding the original windows are. Old windows were engineered to be maintained indefinitely. New windows will wear out and need replaced eventually.
I had a co-worker who stripped the paint off of his 1920's door hardware with a wire brush mounted to some kind of power tool. He had no idea that you could "cook" them in a sacrificial crock pot for a few hours, and the paint would just about fall off.
If your woodwork has a shellac finish, and is looking dirty and grungy, did you know that you don't have to completely strip the woodwork and sand to bare wood? Instead, you can lightly scrub the woodwork with some denatured alcohol and steel wool to remove the crud, and lay on a new coat or 3 of shellac. What's left of the original shellac will melt and become part of the new finish.
Simple answer is a cliche; 1 man's trash is another one's treasure.
Other reasons, are personal touches, specific school district, specific part of town the people want to live, family situation (i.e. little kids) lends itself to an open concept, like certain color schemes...
my thoughts are that you let other people do what they want to their homes and you do what you want. why do you feel that your preferences are any better than theirs?
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I think you might be very surprised...
