Historic Homes (hardwood floors, vinyl, granite, fireplaces)

[Chango]

Are there historic house lovers here? If so, what do you like/dislike about living in one? And what does everyone think about having their house on the National Historic Register ...is it an honor or a liability?

[desertsun41]

My best friend grew up in an old home that was on the NJ historical register. People would often stop in front of the house to oggle at it and at times you looked back at them with suspicion.

Other then that you had non standard everything. Ceilings too low. Non standard door sizes. Very tall baseboard moldings and so on. Oh and how could I forget the creeky floors. There were no ghosts though.

I love the old homes and that's coming from a Designer.

[cap1717]

I LOVE historic homes. . . mostly for the architecture and charm. . . especially Craftsman style, with big front porches. Sadly, they are priced way out of my budget!

[Coldjensens]

We love historic homes. We would not have anything else. I love the way they look, the way they feel and the way that they smell. I love discovering fdifferent building techniques and finding things hidden in the walls or floors. I love researching the history of a home and trying to find out everything about every person who has lived there. Historic houses are my thing.

We restored an 1893 house in California and are now restoring an 1836 house in Michigan. We also helped restore several other homes owned by friends/neighbors or while working with various historical organizations, and did a lot of work on a 1910 rental that we lived in for a while.

Absolutely love historic homes. Absolutely hate the cr@p that they build today. Both the modern architecture and the building practices and materials are appalling.


Restoring an old house is a labor of love, it is not an investment proposition. It is very expensive. For example three years ago salvaged yellow pine 18" baseboard moldings were selling for $16/foot. We managed to make a deal to get some from a house that was being torn down for almost free, but that give you an idea of what it cold cost. We needed about 400 feet of that molding (someone had Home Depot "modernized" a room in our house - yuck). Luckily we got about 1800 feet of it for the cost of paying someone to help remove it. We also got some great window and door casings plus replacement panel doors from the time period that the room was added to the house. Still this cost several hundred to collect the materials, a lot of time to remove the nails and pretty up the wood. Another hundred to buy appropriate square nails to instal it with and about a thousand plus to instal the moldings, casings and doors. That is just the moldings for one room.

More expensive and tragic (or even criminal in my mind) is the practice of gutting old house kitchens an installing Hope Depot pre-made cabinets, granite counter tops and modern appliances. Equally bad is the practice of replacing the windows with vinyl or Aluminum. What is the purpose of buying a historic house if you are just going to destroy its historic integrity by "modernizing" it? I have never understood this. If you want a modern house with a historic look, hire an architect to design one. It is cheaper.

I saw one house being restored where the gutted the interior down to the studs, remived the hardwood floors gutted the kitchen and bathrooms and then replaced everything with 3/8" drywall, pergo, Craftsmaid cabinets and modern fixtures and appliances. Then they tried to sell the house for a profit claiming it was an "updated" historic house and wondered why it would not sell. take away all fo the historic charm and you are selling an old house that looks like a modern apartment. They acutally de-valued the house in my opinion. I would have paid more for it in rough but historic shape than after they ruined it .

The other thing that drives me nuts is the modern practice of designing houses with five or even ten incompatible historical architectural style elements. And/or fake architectural elements that are reminiscent of historic styles. Why do they do that? What is the point of a fake bay window or a turret that is only two feet in diameter? Why do they mix gothic, craftsman and colonial architecture elements? Why do they design a house that is basically a two story rectangle with windows only inthe front, and then put a dozen or so peaks in the roof? Maybe our designer friend can explan this. I just do not get the appeal of the McMansion design style.

In the old days, they often mixed architectural styles, but the elements were compatible and real. things has a puprpose. No fake stairways, towers, bay windows etc.

For quality purposes I owuld not want a house built after the 1950s with a few exceptions into the 1960s. Style wise, I have little interest in anything built after 1930.

When you get into really old houses like ours, you lose some of the grandeur, but replace it with cool history. OUr house is just an old farm house and it was quite small and plain when built in 1836. It was added to and remodeled extensively in 1850 and in 1868 that we can document. Certainly every resident made some change or another. Some of the modifications are nice and historic, others had to be undone at great expense. Sometimes you sacrifice square footage (and appraised value) for historical integrity.

Although our house is plain, it is awesome to think that indians sat onf the floor of the parlor and negotiated trades of furs, Maple Syrup and hand made trinkets for flour, sugar, tobacco and undoubtely whiskey. Later, the house was used as a blind pig. IT wsa also the home of the first postmaster in our community. It was a doctors office for one of the first female doctors in our state. and yes, it iws supposedly haunted, but we have seen no sign of that (we moved the house from its original location, maybe the ghost stayed behind).

[Cattknap]

We love them also and actually considered one in when we retired and moved across country last yer. Damp basements, drafty windows, problem plumbing & electrical and constant upkeep on the wood siding, fireplaces needed major repair - looked fabulous though and loved all the wood and moldings....just more than we wanted to take on physically or financially.

[Coldjensens]

Originally Posted by Cattknap

We love them also and actually considered one in when we retired and moved across country last yer. Damp basements, drafty windows, problem plumbing & electrical and constant upkeep on the wood siding, fireplaces needed major repair - looked fabulous though and loved all the wood and moldings....just more than we wanted to take on physically or financially.

The doggoned woodpeckers create havock on that wood siding. Grrrrrrr.

[plaidmom]

Originally Posted by Coldjensens

More expensive and tragic (or even criminal in my mind) is the practice of gutting old house kitchens an installing Hope Depot pre-made cabinets, granite counter tops and modern appliances. Equally bad is the practice of replacing the windows with vinyl or Aluminum. What is the purpose of buying a historic house if you are just going to destroy its historic integrity by "modernizing" it? I have never understood this. If you want a modern house with a historic look, hire an architect to design one. It is cheaper.

I saw one house being restored where the gutted the interior down to the studs, remived the hardwood floors gutted the kitchen and bathrooms and then replaced everything with 3/8" drywall, pergo, Craftsmaid cabinets and modern fixtures and appliances. Then they tried to sell the house for a profit claiming it was an "updated" historic house and wondered why it would not sell. take away all fo the historic charm and you are selling an old house that looks like a modern apartment. They acutally de-valued the house in my opinion. I would have paid more for it in rough but historic shape than after they ruined it .

Remuddlers!!! Grrrrrrr.

Another fan of older houses here.

Our Tudor only dates from 1930, but we realy enjoy it. One of the reasons we chose the house was because so little "updating" had happened over the years.

We also love the neighborhood. Our entire block is listed on our town's architecture tour.

You can see pics in my album or here:

1930's Tudor - a set on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/pedalfaster/sets/72057594133028366/ - broken link)

[Coldjensens]

Originally Posted by plaidmom

Remuddlers!!! Grrrrrrr.

Another fan of older houses here.

Our Tudor only dates from 1930, but we realy enjoy it. One of the reasons we chose the house was because so little "updating" had happened over the years.

We also love the neighborhood. Our entire block is listed on our town's architecture tour.

You can see pics in my album or here:

1930's Tudor - a set on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/pedalfaster/sets/72057594133028366/ - broken link)

I was going to say "nice bathroom" when I saw the first photograph, but pretty much everything is nice. Very well done - at least what can be seen in the pictures. I particularly like the garage. Too bad they painted the moldings in the one room, but that is easy to correct (or leave them white, a lot of people prefer painted moldings over stained wood). You must be very happy to live there. You are lucky.

[Chango]

It's good to hear from people who respect old houses! That's kind of rare in my neck of the woods.

I live in a teens era Prairie Style home that is very much origional. It has all the origional windows, origional kitchen cabinets and all moldings, built in cabinets and moldings. We even have the origional gravity hot water heating system, including the origional boiler, which has been converted from coal burning to natural gas.

The reason I bring this up is because my neighbors are about to bastardize their own historic 30's era tudor revival bungalow by adding a second story and wrapping it in vinyl. It's gonna look horrible and I worry it will hurt my property values, not to mention trash the character of our street. How does one get others to see the light and appreciate good architecture?

[plaidmom]

Originally Posted by Coldjensens

Too bad they painted the moldings in the one room, but that is easy to correct (or leave them white, a lot of people prefer painted moldings over stained wood). You must be very happy to live there. You are lucky.

Thanks. We do love it. I'm torn on stripping the trim and moldings. Some of the trim in the kitchen and both baths is also painted white. I kind of like that it is easy to see dirt (I'm not a "hide the dirt" kind of person ) and it's easy to clean. As you can see in the pics of the rest of the house there is plenty of dark wood work to go around . I'm not sure what I'll end up doing in the bedroom with the painted trim. Kind of low on my list at this point.

We are currently upgrading the electric and the plumbing. Finishing off a laudry room. We started down in the basement/mechanicals and are just kind of working our way up. The kitchen will be next. It was the only modern "remuddle" ...done sometime in the 1980s (helllllo blue countertops?).

It will probably be another year or three before we make it to the fun "cosmetic" stuff: refinishing floors, patching some plaster and painting.

Then there is the backyard......
It never ends.