I restored my prewar apt 20 years ago. When we bought it it was an uninhabitable wreck. Nothing had been touched since 1958. I think buying a true wreck can be a better choice than paying for someone else's taste. I tried to keep things in line with the original apartment..white subway tiles etc. I would love the light and views views I could get in a new apartment. I definitely miss having decent ac because even when you put in central air it never quite works correctly. (Our building does not allow through the wall units which I would much prefer) But the ceiling heights, plaster moldings, herringbone floors and thickness of the walls, and beautiful original fireplace are hard to beat. I hope buyers start to appreciate these old gems again.
Any recos for companies skilled at restoring stained glass, and leaded glass?
It's good to see people understanding the idea of 'restoring' rather than 'renovating.' The sad thing is it's usually only rich people in the developed world that can afford or appreciate these things. In a lot of countries in Eastern Europe a lot of these old things still exist in poor homes. You don't have to be rich to find original door frames, doors, door knobs, wooden windows, etc, almost everything intact, but it's not necessarily always presented or thought of as a rich, privileged thing. If anything it's most often looked down on as a symbol of poverty. A lot of times things haven't been changed not because they appreciate them, but because they haven't had the money to. The sad thing is as soon as most young people inherit these places and get the money, all these beautiful more handmade things will be thrown out to be replaced with modern, plastic materials, the most common being the pvc windows. One of the primary reasons I can think of is they just want to catch up with the rest of the world. It will take a generation of gutting all these nice things until it's all gone before they realize they want it back, and then only the rich people will be able to afford it. (By the way the problem with that cover photo to the article is it looks like they knocked down the middle wall. One of my most unliked things in old homes are knocking down walls and getting rid of the separate kitchen.)
6
I love fixing my old home, as it puts me in touch with my carpenter and mason forebears. I love being with them in spirit. They did it right, and strong. (Except for electrical!)
1
What amazes me is how many Apartments in the Times have pictures showing window air conditioning units especially considering the price of the apartment and the amount of money used for renovation. There are very efficient mini split units available that can be fitted into older buildings and they offer many advantages over ducted air conditioning.
1
@David Gregory—agree that mini splits are efficient, and also quieter. However most NYC buildings don’t let shareholders go through the walls, so minisplits, unless they are installed in or just by a window and use the glass for the small amount of ducting, are out.
I would like to find a way to add a mini split.
2
No one wants a permanent, visible, ugly unit breathing out of a lovely plaster wall -- perhaps right above a landscape painting?
We lug our two small window units out of the bedroom windows in early October and store them until late June. Window units are ugly too, but they aren't forever.
2
Ah, sanity! Taste, and intelligence! Unlike the people in Indianapolis who think that a 100-year-old home has to be gutted to the studs and everything redone. Just because others are doing it. Or the clods on HGTV (House Gutting TV) who get the audience hot and bothered by smashing things. People who think that progress is measured by how much they can dump in debris bins. Thank you.
16
@gxi Well, these are the people with both taste and money. I imagine there are also a few in NY who renovate with the taste of a Donald Trump. I remember a contractor sneering at my original bungalow windows in Boston saying "We usually rip these out." It's like a whole industry doing renovations with no regard to architecture or house styles, thanks somewhat I'm sure to the HGTV shows you mention.
5
I lived in a “pre-earthquake” flat in San Francisco before moving to New York. Historic buildings certainly have their charm, but when it comes to kitchens and bathrooms I will take new and modern!
1
Those doors and iron stair railings were exceptionally beautiful. What fine work. The astroturf dining room wainscoting-completely and bizarrely hideous though.
I live in a 1936 small Tudor. I love many things about it and certainly cannot afford the attention given to the Brooklyn brownstone. My house has lovely woodwork-painted white which is what I like, and plaster walls-the kind with the wire inside. I know this because of a particularly horrible experience with a plumber who did extraordinary damage, and charged me $ 1,400 to fix a leaky shower which was not even fixed. If I had not lived through this nightmare I would never have believed it. And I have since acquired a fine son in law who is a plumber. I have nothing against the profession.
I would actually like new modern windows for functional reasons. Commenters are against it here but I'm not sure why. These have old fashioned heavy storm windows which make them double paned without the advantages of the new ones. Dirt gets in. And cobwebs. And once, memorably a large nest of wasps. They are too heavy for me to deal with , and helpers once could only open them for cleaning by destroying the screens at disassembly. How was that good ? Not everything about an old house is wonderful. But I'd never destroy its beauty for an open floor plan. And yet my "closed " kitchen gets light from all 4 directions. Simply lovely year round.
5
A lovely article. Thank you. So nice to read about something besides Trump. My husband and I have been restoring a 5000-sq-ft 1910 house for 26 years now. All the stuff you can’t see is finally done ~ drainage, electric, plumbing, heat. Now on to the decorative challenges. It’s a labor of love and it costs a bloody fortune. Someday our big piece of art will be passed on to someone else (who will hopefully take good care of it!)
9
@Barbara Stewart my fiancé and I just bought a beautifully restored Dutch colonial Victorian. The couple had it for 22 years- fixed electric, plumbing. Added an a large addition to the back of the house but kept ALL the charm. The gorgeous moldings, built in bookcase, the original doors and doorknobs. We are so lucky we get to buy their hard work (the man of the house did most of the work himself).
I hope when the day comes you find the right buyer who appreciates and WANTS a beautiful old house. They say millennials like "modern." My future hubby and I abhor it. I like the old - the older the better - so I love renaissance revival Victorian as well as 20s, 30s, 40s. And he goes Gaga for the 70s kitsch aesthetic but we make it work;)
5000 square feet wow- do you post in the "our old house" Facebook group. I would love to see it!!
Were building standards that poor before the war that we should marvel that there are that many of them left? I mean were they building with adobe or something? Every square inch of New York is prohibitively expensive, are the pre-war homes that much less expensive? Now the detail in some of the appointments of the houses may have the cache of time, but once you live there it gets routine. And considering the low number of residence that live in these buildings, it doesn't do much for the New York tax base, build up.
I have died and gone to heaven. Real estate porn of the highest caliber.
17
Those square downlight holes in the ceiling moldings were restored perfectly.
3
I looked at various public NYC property data bases and found that roughly 65.5% of all residential structures (private homes and apartment buildings) in NYC were built pre-war (pre-1945). Here is the breakdown by borough:
borough - Count
BK - 193714
BX - 44848
MN - 26170
QN - 194938
SI - 27274
TOT NYC= 486944
3
Astroturf on the walls? Gaudy clashing color /patterns? A single centered red towel in a jade bathroom with crown moulding? It's tacky and a not an "original" period restoration and the interior design is like Downton Abby on shrooms!
3
Many comments have expressed my sentiments for those of us who are unable to vacate the home for a year and hire a museum quality crew of crafts- and tradespeople. Doing work on the house room by room as we can afford it has been our method. I did discover one surprising resource that is at once fortunate and disheartening: our block in Brooklyn has over the years that we've been here, occasioned with dumpsters littered with the remains of our new neighbors' houses being either partially remodeled or gutted down to the brick. Finding just down the block replacements for missing items in my house that match exactly, things like stair spindles, escutcheons, oak casings, closet doors in better condition than mine, etc.
On one occasion I caught the workers removing an entire and intact oak mantle with beveled mirror, scallop niches, and tapered columns from the rear parlor of the house three houses down from mine. The very same room in my house that was missing its mantle. The guys were happy to take cash tips from me to carry it into my house. It fit perfectly.
13
Thank goodness you were there to make the catch.
If people like spare, unadorned boxes to live in, there are plenty of ugly buildings for them to move to. But then, they wouldn't be able to boast about how much their renovations cost them.
A family member who cries poverty got that way because of the unnecessary renovations (desecrations?) he had done on his house. Imagine removing 110-year-old chestnut and oak doors, baseboards, and crown moldings because he wanted new ones. And getting rid of thick, sturdy plaster just to say he took everything down to the studs. Today's plaster can't hold a candle (or a nail) to the old stuff.
6
As an editor for Old House Journal, I found many elements of these restorations breathtaking. Yes, restoration can be expensive, but such original craftsmanship is worth saving for its richness, history, and the intrinsic value it adds to our lives. Human beings may live for 80 years or more, but old buildings can live for centuries if they're well cared for.
10
Maybe they should help the 60,000 homeless human beings in New York City instead.
8
@Richard why should anyone buy anything when they can spend the money on the homeless! Have you ever bought new clothing or gone out to dinner? Maybe you can take the cost of your NYT subscription and donate that to help the homeless.
I can think of worse ways to use money than to restore a classic home to its original beauty. If nobody restores these homes, then none of them will be left, which makes me kind of sad. Seeing people restore beautiful architecture and then USING that space in their everyday lives is wonderful to see. They are also giving jobs to craftsmen who deal with very specific niche products - many of these arts would be lost without people like this restoring their homes.
24
Spent 15 years restoring a 1920's era, plain, two story row-house in Philadelphia. Just bringing back a simple design like this to what it was 100 years ago (boiler, radiators, knob and tube electric, oak staircase with stained poplar banister (to make it look like Mahogany ) is years of work for part-time DIYer. Yes, I am an engineer and learned all the trades to do so, but ordinary folks cannot afford this type of thing. There are too many lost arts involved. I ended up disassembling and rebuilding some of the some of the showpieces (15-lite, 3 x 5) ornate inner front door and glassed fan window front porch. Tons of work. You have to love it. There is no money in it, and if you hire someone they just show up with their drywall screws and blunt chop saw blades and rusty plaster tools and just make a mess of everything. Paid a plumber $175/hour (supposedly the best in the business) to put a hole for a 2" sink drain -- he hits the floor joist. I have to patch the holes. On and on it goes. Very few craftsman left, they are private and never advertise -- they take on elite jobs and work -- as noted by other commenters -- for the 1%.
25
Some of us actually did the work, in the pictures. (i.e. school for ethical culture, cpw/63rd)
We were a dedicated crew of strippers, plasterers, woodworkers and painters and all of us love/hate the work we do.
It's dirty, dusty, health averse work. We swore and smoked and drank and made some good friendships.
What we didn't do was confuse the romance of the finished product with the absolute madness and health costs necessary to make the romance possible.
13
I guess the Great Society years are gone and over. And it's back to pre war if you have oodles and oodles of cash. The more things change the more they stay the same.
5
Sorry, but there was plenty of money in the LBJ years.
As for the Great Society, I now fear that Senator Moynihan was right. Welfare did not do what we'd hoped it would. In too many cases, quite the contrary.
4
Beautiful and costly, but-"Pre-war?" Which one? There are so many. Isn't anything older than a minute ago pre-war?
6
@GSMK "Isn't anything older than a minute ago pre-war?" Sadly, yes! In NYC, though, I believe it means WWII, whereas here in New England, I've always considered "pre-war" homes to mean the Revolutionary War.
5
@GSMK , fyi, World War II.
3
@GSMK Pre-1945.
3
What a quaint little humblebrag for the mega-rich of NYC. I loved looking at the photos; but even a majority of the before and afters are highly reliant upon expensive interior design for their looks over pure restoration. It’s also worth noting that typically, in this ilk of architecture, ceilings are usually so high because the footprints of the rooms are quite small and rarely “open.”
If you’re not in the “1%” and live in the many “prewar” (a sweeping term that doesn’t say much about the actual architectural period and is only relevant in NYC) homes across the country, much of this work can be done without enlisting the most expensive craftspeople money can buy; but it does require research and getting your hands dirty. But this is seemingly more about ostentatious displays of the wealthy masquerading as refined saviors of architecture.
8
A faux boxwood hedge on the wall? Seating that seems designed for Queen Victoria? The bones of these homes have been admirably restored but I've got questions about the rest of it!
10
Not my style, that's for sure. Who wants to live in a museum?
4
How on earth does one (or one's cleaning staff, I suppose) battle the accumulation of dust and cobwebs on a faux boxwood hedge wall?
9
Is that *astroturf* on the dining room walls? I think I'd prefer water stains.
6
My 1892 Park Slope house did not have any of the pretty floor borders that were popular when it was built. Instead the original owner spent more money and put down broadloom carpeting.
This led me to desiring what I didn't have. Having a floor custom made and laid is not a big deal. I needed a floor for my new kitchen. But one has to have a pattern to follow first. So I started attending open houses, and house tours, taking pictures (with a ruler).
Being a programmer at heart I organized the pictures and produced the only website that documents these floor borders. And I created a way to group the pictures. They can be seen here:
http://floorborders.com/
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@Don Wiss: Beautiful! We have very simple feature strips on our floors, but I love them, and was aghast when an upstairs neighbor chose to cover their same floors with gray paint.
7
It is easier to bring back a house or apartment that wasn't renovated in the 1970s. An ugly decade, in some ways.
You don't need an army if you don't have to rebuild torn-off moldings, dismantle a kitchen island, get rid of lowered ceilings and recessed lighting, and so on.
10
Dean's team stripped the ornate crown moldings and door casings on our 1838 Greenwich Village brownstone, which were literally buried by 15 layers of paint. I can't speak highly enough of the work these craftspeople do. Not only do they restore the beauty of bygone ages but they also make the buildings safely inhabitable again.
16
Wonderful article - we would love to see more of this sort of story in the Times. Love the celebration of New York history that is implicit to this sort of loving restoration, and appreciate the idea that owning a brownstone is something of a sacred trust. To the Brownstone owners of today: please leave those architectural details in place so that one day, when we can afford such magnificent housing, it is still in place for us to enjoy.
20
One more item is metalwork—for the good stuff, there are only a handful of craftsmen with the tooling and skills. One is Bradley Robinson in Richmond, VA. He has work in the upper east side and in midtown.
10
Kudos to the artisans. tradespeople, and others masters of their crafts for retaining skills that are being lost to time. While I agree with others that these lovely homes need not look museums, the quality of the restoration work is amazing and breathtaking.
16
Pray tell, in which drugstore aisle might one find a "wire-bristled toothbrush"?
3
hardware store, my guess
4
The floors are covered in carpets, the walls in wallpaper, the windows with gorgeous fabric, the furniture upholstered so beautifully, the bedroom canopy, pillows and duvets make the room with their comfortable materials. Yet with all of these finishing touches defining the rooms, the people who actually did this work are never mentioned in any interior renovation that I have ever seen. Why aren't the workrooms, paperhangers and upholsterers mentioned? They do as much to transform a room as any other tradesperson working on this and other projects. Is there work not worth acknowledging?
26
I love the walnut pocket doors restored by Mr. Camenares - beautiful.
14
I just loved this article. Yes, it is fantasy for most of us but so what? We read Edith Wharton novels for pleasure too, don’t we?
39
Regarding..."Decades of poor treatment by renters had resulted in unsalvageable plaster walls and falling ceilings.."
My experience has been landlords with poor regard for their tenants regardless of how much rent they pay and fail to make timely and quality repairs using unqualified and cheap labor, and poor materials while demonstrating no interest in preserving historical details as they wring the last dollar out of the asset.
78
This is my story, to a tee. My husband and I currently rent a duplexed 1924 house that’s falling into profound disrepair, thanks to a textbook absentee landlord. We’ve given up mentioning necessary fixes, because if he deigns to send a repairman, more damage results due to lack of skill. We’re currently negotiating the purchase of an 1880s property in the Midwest, and plan on restoring and loving the house as our landlord never did for this place.
13
@GB Yeah, it's hard to figure what a tenant could do to make a ceiling fall down.
4
@Danielle I had a first floor landlady who would send repairmen upstairs with the key and never check on what they were doing, just pay them. Needless to say, everything was done half-youknowwhat.
2
I would love to see the restoration of one of these pre-war apartments on "This Old House". They probably know the experts of these vanishing crafts and how to get the plumbing and electrical systems up to modern standards.
I love the choice of paint colors in the photos which showed the owners or architects did their research.
12
@Just paying attention
Did you see the Brooklyn brownstone they redid in 2009? Gorgeous.
6
I understand that the article focuses on the aesthetics of the property. I recently purchased an apartment in a 1931 building on Central Park West and did a lot of work in it. Some of the most expensive work was the plumbing and the electrical. Plumbing had to be brought up to code and circuit breakers had to be added (we were lucky that we didn't have to bring more electricity up to the apartment). A lot of what goes on during a renovation are things that you don't see.
42
My humble advice: restore nothing, but create a minimalist space where cleaning is easy and the needed things are visible or stored in wall safes.
8
@Tuvw Xyz
Isn't "Minimalist Victorian" an oxymoron?
8
@Tuvw Xyz
Then why buy a pre-war apartment or home in the first place? There are plenty of modern buildings with a minimalist look.
14
I agree. It kills me when people buy houses with architectural details in place and then tear everything off and break down walls to create a place that looks like a Soho loft. What a waste.
12
The photo that accompanied the article made me shake my head: does honoring the architectural beauty of past generations obligate us to create homes that could double as film sets for historical dramas?
Imitation may indeed be the most sincere form of flattery, but I think the original owners of these lovely pre-war dwellings would be puzzled by our generations slavish attempts of recreations. "Pre-War" design embraced the modern with relish.
Angela Dileo
30
@Angela dileo I agree. I was surprised to see the interior design look like a time warp. Now, I'm a gal who likes traditional interior design, but I don't have any desire to live in a house that looks like either a movie set for a historical drama, or a historic home that looks just the way it did 200 years ago.
For me, the beauty of the original architecture will easily go well with either traditional design or even very contemporary design. I would not want to live in that room with the wallpaper hedge.
21
I seem to wind up restoring almost anything, but this article needs many footnotes, not just for the shifting focus between NYC and suburban issues, or for the very partial advice, but also for issues of health and safety. Even though we are about to turn the corner on allowing methylene chloride strippers and might possibly get around to banning asbestos, and possibly might even convince small contractors to adopt safe working conditions, (i.e. impossible in residential projects), we are far from protecting the public. It should bring no Kondo joy to anyone who actually understands that a thousand pounds of residues were mostly filtered by peoples lungs in the restoration and occupancy processes.
And yes, both old plasters and early drywall were made with materials, including asbestos, the wonder substance. Of course, the popcorn ceilings sprayed in the 60s and 70s to cover that old cracked plaster are bulked with the stuff. And arsenic in the paint (the popular Victorian color). Everything used to keep the rats and roaches at bay for a hundred years is neither gone, nor benign. And no, there are no convenient facilities where amateurs or professionals can bring things for analysis. Nobody is going to come in after the fact and certify anything for either your peace of mind or to prevent lawsuits by subsequent owners.
Fun, but pay attention and understand that you’re on your own.
15
I have a 1939 home Washington DC and we have redone the wood floors twice in 25 years and they still look great. The problem I am facing is that the wooden double hung windows have either been painted shut or have other maintenance issues with the cords. I just painted the frames inside and out as part of a remodeling project on the back of the house. I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and get the windows refurbished as I refuse to replace them with some sort of synthetic material. New wooden windows would be even more. I have to keep telling myself that in my neighborhood, houses have increased in value and keep going up at least some what. My insurance agent told me that the expense for replacement value is the old part of the house, i.e., the old oak floors, the plaster walls and slate roof would have to be duplicated. Wow!
5
In my limited experience, you are better off restoring the existing windows if you can find a really good craftsperson who is capable of doing it.
The new replacement windows never seem to work as well as the originals. In replacing the old windows, the company will likely remove the ancient counterweights that actually work to keep windows open. If the openings are fairly wide, the new windows will be heavy and without those counter weights, the windows tend to drop down from the sheer weight.
And that’s just scratching the surface of issues. I’ve had so many problems with my expensive replacement windows in the 18 years I’ve had them.
Good luck, I do hope you find a qualified restorer for the project.
12
@jfk66 It's not hard at all to remove the window sashes, and redo the cords that hold the counterweights in place. I have done it all by myself. It just takes a little attention to how things are put together, and then you take them apart step by step. Cord is easily replaceable, using clothesline rope. Keep your original windows: they will add to the value of your home over time.
6
@jfk66 Do some research, it isn't hard to get rid of those cords in your double hung windows (probably covered in lead paint) and replace them with chains--definitely a DIY project. They will work great when fixed, don't waste money on new windows, good ones are very expensive, if your only problem is a poor paint job and broken cords
5
Interesting to see how the 1% does it. For those of us who DIY who were active in restoration back in the day, we were indebted to the old-time craftsmen (yes, usually men) who worked alongside us & taught us their skills. Sweat equity goes a long way to developing respect for the old houses and their wonderful qualities.
58
My parents' first house, bought in 1972, was a period colonial, the original part of the house built by a veteran of the revolutionary war. All they saw were the original wide board oak flooring, the three fireplaces, the expansive front yard and the acre and a half of nicely wooded property. They didn't see the complete lack of insulation, the wiring and plumbing from the 1910's and a kitchen from the 1930's.
Buying it wasn't an act of love. It was an act of madness. Restoring it wasn't an exercise in patience. It was a death march. When they finally sold the house in 2000, they didn't get through the to do list of what they originally had planned for the first five years. How we lived through it is something I will never understand.
Thanks, but as charming as those pictures are, I'll stick to modern construction.
22
@Alex
There's a difference between modern, less ornate style, and modern construction quality. Much of what we build with today is cheaply made, shoddy, often poorly designed, assembled and installed by unskilled workers, and not designed to last long. We are a throw away society, and it shows in the products we buy and use, including those for our homes.
38
@Alex I have a 1948 house and have spent the last 34 years remodeling it. I have always tried to stay true to the original house and not fall into the "I built a house onto my addition" that has happened to so many houses in my neighborhood.
Am I finished? Almost! I could do nothing more and it would be fine, but there is always something I see that could be tweaked. And yes, while educating children, there were years we could not even keep up with normal maintenance, let alone improvement. But children eventually do get educated and then one can do what one planned years before. I have no regrets.
9
@Alex My husband and I bought one of those period Colonials in central Maine back in 1972. We did most of the work ourselves.
By the 1990s we were re-remodeling; by the 2010s we were re-remodeling. Roofs were replaced, the main house's back wall (the one wall that had still been fine back in the 1970s) was replaced, the cellar rubblestone walls had to be re-pointed with cement. On and on and on.
Last fall we sold it and moved to a little new ranch house. We adored that old house. I hope the new people cherish it and maintain it as carefully as we did until they, too, get old.
14
Original prewar charm? More like gilded age splendor.
65
@Tono Bungay
It depends on which war they're talking about. Perhaps the Second Boer War.
3
@Tono Bungay
I agree: Pre-WWI, isn't it?!
It seems we need to name which war we are referring to. Some day, perhaps, pre-Middle East War?!
1
Tradesmen, who do this kind of work are rare, about as rare as the looks of the room in the cover photo. Master craftsman was a term that used to be tossed around regularly, and even if the budget is there, the workers have mostly retired, or are about to, like me.
My best advice would be to make sure the contractor or one of the tradesman is also a master marriage counselor, not kidding.
45
@W
My husband and I recently bought a 1909 house in New Hampshire that had had its plumbing and wiring all replaced by a previous owner. Two of the three bathrooms were totally redone as was the kitchen although it retains the older look in its finishes. The couple had sold off part of the large property to pay for the renovations. We are the beneficiaries, but they got divorced!
26
NB: A wire bristle toothbrush may be too harsh when you're close to the original wood surface. I used dental toothbrushes, cotton swabs dipped in stripper, and re-purposed my mother's wire cake tester to clean out the crevices in an egg and dart molding when lobster picks began to break delicate moldings on an 1893 quarter-sawn white oak mantel that bore on the maker's label on its back the ominous words "Filled and primed." I spent some 125 hours stripping and refinishing (8 coat finish) to bring back its beauty. The compo ornament resisted staining and remained lighter. I didn't have time prepping a house for sale to seek out professional advice, but hindsight would have had me find an opaque stain to match. All the woodwork some 18 years later has not surprisingly been painted white by subsequent owners with different taste.
16
Old houses are great and can be satisfying, but know what you’re getting into and what it will take to get the place to what you want it to be.
We have a second home that was built in 1900. We got it cheap and it needs a lot of love, but with patience it can be made to be much like its former self. We are not being fanatical about restoration details, but are still keeping the character of the place while bringing some parts into the 21st century. But we’ll retain the character of the original plaice, of which we only the 4th owners. The bonus is that it is in a tiny old fishing village in the Canadian maritimes, has one of the best bay and ocean views in town, and our front yard ends in the ocean.
19
Please note for any would-be restorers: Mechanical systems such as plumbing and electrical can be fully replaced without any need to gut. Make your requirements known, and licensed plumbers and electricians can work around existing moldings and plaster details. Unless you are unusually handy and have a great deal of free time on your hands, I recommend using real plaster (not drywall) experts and professional strippers rather than handypersons or DIY. If you can't afford a full crew and you're not in a hurry, members of the crews sometimes moonlight on weekends and your neighbors may know some of these talented people.
17
@Mopar
Yes, real plaster is wonderful and has great sound-absorbing quilts as well. Well worth the cost.
22
@Mopar I always found it curious that my apartment building from the 1950s had plaster on top of plasterboard. The latter took the form of planks mounted horizontally on wooden studs. The planks had holes to allow the hand applied plaster to attach to it. The whole is about one inch thick. I have seen wooden and metal lath previously, but never this.
3
@David It was known as rock lath. Metal wire mesh lathing could fail in fires, and traditional wooden lathing was extremely prone to fires within wall cavities.
8
I could watch these craftspersons work all day. They are truly artists.
Beautiful
50
You may like to watch them all day, but if I was doing the work the tools would be put away until you went away. Do you allow people to look over your shoulder as you work?
I don't know whether to vomit or laugh at these interiors. The term "horror vacui" comes to mind. Why do people want to live in a claustrophobic 19th C floor plan? What is it doing for your depression?
23
@SF Architectural historian Henry-Russell Hitchcock noted that his grandfather's house in Plymouth MA had a more open floor plan than anything Frank Lloyd Wright had produced to date. The only way to make a doable furniture arrangement in my family house was to remove the added bath in the outside corner, allowing the elliptical bow now fully revealed to hold a standard sofa and flanking chairs. Otherwise that room had been impossible to furnish logically with four windows, a corner fireplace, and double width openings into both the dining room and the front hall.
5
@SF You say "claustrophobic"; I say "cozy." What exacerbates my depression is modern townhouses and apartments with windows on only one or two walls, instead of all four.
25
Team of experts? How about ton of money? Also, should there be a mention of lead based paint when discussing stripping, etc?
21
@Lane Wharton I believe the article did indeed mention lead paint. Its presence is one more reason to strip to lead-free standards.
14
@ Lane: Lead was mentioned, but many of the so-called heavy metals, including cadmium; arsenic and copper were also found in both pigments and base materials. Our celebrated ambassador to Italy, Clare Booth Luce, had a nice ornate ceiling, and became the notable example of being poisoned by arsenic drifting down into her bed, or her food. Let’s hear it for color!
8
There was.
This article is written for the Upper East/Westside crafts luddite with money to burn. The vast majority of restorations I know of were done by common people of modest means. But they had two things: Time and patience. I bought and live in a 1910 Arts & Crafts Mission Style townhouse in Jersey City (for the proverbial 'song' I might add). It was in good condition, and that's a great advantage. I learned how to plaster, build cabinets and wainscotting, make mosaics and leaded glass windows (including a 6x6 skylight), finish floors and whatever else needed to be done. After eight years it is just about finished, and beautiful. Something to be proud of beyond preserving an architectural gem. You can learn almost anything if you put your mind to it.
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Grew up in one of these old farm houses. Late 19th century, 99% original. A rare gem. But, the truth is, most of these are a hodge podge of miscellaneous worn-out parts cobbled together over the years in order to keep the whole thing afloat. Many, simply, cannot be resurrected. People "fall in love" but will regret it. Check the basement (dirt). The wiring, plumbing, heating (steam?) requires disassembling the entire house. I just visited one (1897) a local broker had redone (again) and had on the market for sale. Once they have been "restored" multiple times they simply are not what they were. Have to be realistic.
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I sometimes am less than enthused about period-like homes, but these are fantastic.
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If you want a house like this, small midwestern towns are FULL of them. Freeport, IL has nothing but these houses. They are just begging to be restored and you can buy one for a song. Many beautiful homes just waiting for some love!
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@Nancy We spent five years restoring a civil war era home. It was a work of love and we did much of the work ourselves. We took it down to the bones and insulated, redid the inner walls saving as much as we could of the wood and lath. One thing to note, even if you can buy a house "cheap", restoring it isn't cheap either in dollars or in time.
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I’m in the process of moving to the Cincinnati area, and purchasing an older house as part of the deal. The region is strewn with astonishing houses, waiting to be loved.
Historic homes require a balance of respect, humility and realism to be brought back properly- you have to put aside your ego, listen to the house (they have a voice, believe it or not), and honor its aesthetic, along with the design sense with which it was built. I cringe at the practice of remuddling beautiful old houses, destroying their innate charm. This article is a refreshing delight.
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@Danielle I agree 100% and applaud your purchasing an old home in Cinci. Owning an old home is BOTH a privilege, and a responsibility. Enjoy the ride, all the way to the end! The work doesn't all have to be done at once - we have owned 7 houses over the years, and always lived through the renovation while living there. It's not pretty, but it can be done.
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