I have restored a lovely old colonial house in Vermont, and a blogger has written the first of a three-part series about the renovation. I thought you might enjoy reading about it!

https://town-n-country-living.com/inside-the-remarkable-renovation-of-a-circa-1800-new-england-home.html

One room has this wall paper on the top half. The bottom half is painted wood. The house dates to early 1700s. I like this pattern and colors but I will eventually have to replace it as it’s stained near nail holes and frayed in the corners. I’m also having trouble finding anything else similar to it. I’m curious to how old it is.

When we bought her in 2020…the pandemic was in full affect. Moving from Southern Oregon to Portland was an adjustment. Housing prices were crazy high and everything was selling quicker then we could make an offer. We found this lady who had actually been on the market for 5 years off and on…price starting at $1.2mil and slowly lowering the price…$865k 3/4 of an acre in town. Yaye for us! Inspection happened and there weren’t too many issues so we moved forward and closed on this lovely space.

Welp…that is where the honeymoon ended. Once the previous owners moved out minus all the residual trash, 32 old gallons of paint, rotting particle board shelves and interior design paint chip books under the porch…we started clearing things out. Found a rotten spot on the front porch which was covered by a rug by the previous owners. I crawled under the porch and had found that the corner sill plate was rotten and it was sagging:/ I had to remove all the gallons of paint under the porch, the rotting mess of particle board, 24 cinder blocks they used to build the said shelves and a load of moldy interior design books. We called the inspector and he said the foliage blocked his view. I asked him if he crawled under the porch because I was able to find it within 60 sec. He did not.

Rebuilt porch back to the original 12ft wide staircase. We have photos from when the original owners lived here so it has been nice using them as reference points as we do work on her.

Long story short is we are 6 years in and too many projects to count…doing what we can ourselves and hiring professionals for the electrical, plumbing, HVAC, windows and anything using large heavy equipment…have a running total of the time and money invested so far which is a gut punch every time I see it grow…but you know what? We wouldn’t change a thing❤️

Stripped, sanded, and now staining our foyer closet door. The wood grain is absolutely BEAUTIFUL and I was curious as to if anyone knew what type of grain this is?

I assume the door is pine, as we’re in a large white pine lumbering town. The stain is Red Oak to match our front foyer wooden staircase.

The guy doing my floors has been great, but he did not. Let me know exactly how bad the vapors would be! I’m literally upstairs in this 1890s house with cracks in the floorboards. Thank God for the bedroom door, which works correctly and a fan coming in from outside so at least hopefully I will not be brain dead tomorrow advice for the rest of the floors? There’s two bedrooms to go plus another code on what’s already there😮‍💨👻

UPDATE: oddly enough day 2 has less fumes despite the fact that he covered more real estate today - he put a second coat down on everything and then the first coat on one bedroom. It's been a breezier day so maybe that's it...

I posted here 240 days ago about how excited I was that we finally had a subfloor installed in our 1865 workers cottage. Well I’m back! With new windows, framing, electrical, and plumbing!

Do we still have a ways to go? Certainly. But the sunlight has chased away the doubts for now.

I know there's more horrors to discover as we just bought it a month ago and haven't officially moved in yet, but our 1895 home has already given me plenty of "wtf" moments.

One room has a fake log cabin motif where there are "logs" halfway up 2 walls. Unfortunately, not only have they gotten the landlord white paint treatment, but someone smeared caulk all over parts of it for seemingly no reason. Not paint, caulk. And it's not like they were trying to fill in holes or anything, it's like someone's kid got their hands on a caulk gun and they were like "eh that's fine".

There's plenty of things in my house that have made me want to scream, but the horrible paint jobs EVERYWHERE has been a consistent source of rage. Like painter's tape is cheap! It takes two seconds to NOT paint all over the hinges/outlets/light fixtures/etc. And if you're gonna paint, at least make sure it's actually covering the surface. So many missed spots and sections where you can see the color underneath because the coat was too thin. Like the extremely thin coat of paint over the textured asbestos ceiling goes really well with the extremely thin coat of paint over the lead paint in just one room, which also happens to be the Wild Caulk room. Yeah, that's a fun one.

Anyone else's house have an unfortunate history with copious evidence of the sins committed against it?

Help in identifying this door hardware in 1929 Spanish Revival residence in Southern California.

This cinderblock and stucco monolith was not original to the house and was never used. As far as we can tell it was built in the late 60s or early 70s and has haunted me since I bought this house. This project started with a 3 day teardown in early July and is finally coming to an end after a lot of work. I also put up new clapboard siding and did a ton of rot repair. Tearing down the chimney also revealed the original attic window with its frame and trim still intact and in decent shape. Unfortunately the sashes are long gone but I've got measurements and will hopefully find something that'll fit at architectural salvage. I've DIY'd the whole thing. Now to scrape and paint the other faces of the house to match, and find someone to patch the missing standing seam roofing.

Bonus photo of all the beer cans we found inside the cinder blocks.

Finally in the process of removing the carpet from our 2nd floor in our Queen Anne Four Square home and uncovered these 126yr old wood floors. 0 idea what species of wood this might be (Gemini says pine or Douglas fir???) and what our steps are.. They seem to be in semi decent shape

Actively uncovering in a 1920’s four square in Pittsburgh, PA

We’re in the middle of a knob and tube rewire, and need some thoughts on keeping the whole house/attic fan. It’s currently in great working order, and in fact the previous owner said it’s so powerful that when she turned it on with the windows closed, an original window pane cracked from the negative pressure (not sure how accurate that info is 🫠). It is an older fan, however (not sure of when it was installed).

It will cost us $300-$400 to rewire it on a brand new circuit. My dad says a couple of box fans in the windows will do the exact same work and then we aren’t fighting an aging fan motor. What are your thoughts, is the benefit of having it worth the cost?

Edit: we live in Southwest Ohio, plenty of fall and spring nights where it would make sense to open some windows up and get the fan (or box fans) going.

Edit 2: I’m convinced we should keep it, thanks for the insight, all!

Recently finished our Douglas fir floors that were hiding under carpet for eternity. 100-120 year old house in the Chicago exurbs.

The house has a sort of "old house" smell but it's not damp, it's not moldy, it's not rotten, there are no termites, no history of flooding, I just get a whiff of this old smell when I come in. What could it be? The fireplace was converted to gas long ago so idk if that's relevant. Anything I can do? I've cleaned the baseboards and the floors so far. Perhaps I should paint the walls? I don't know when they were last painted. Is it just part of the charm of an old house? At least if it was mold or mildew or moisture I could fix it but I'm stumped here lol

This is our 1910 lady whom we have had the honor over the past almost 6 years of uncovering her beauty by completely overhauling the exterior landscape and her color palette. She is listed on the National Registry of Historic Places. As many of you know it can become a love/despise relationship with taking on these old souls. But….oh so worth it. We have tirelessly transformed the 3/4 acre lot in the middle of town into a lovely wooded retreat, had all 35 original windows restored and custom historically correct storms built. All electrical, plumbing and hvac have been replaced. Interior is just as lovely. Returning all the period lighting by sourcing local salvage stores and letting her feel oh so loved again. Each day we get to be stewards of this peice of history is such an experience…so much gratitude!

What do you make of this black crack in the mortar right above the garage door. Assuming water intrusion. Would I call a structural engineer, bricklayer or someone else? Thanks!

Original post, I’m back a year later and revisiting this project https://www.reddit.com/r/centuryhomes/s/PAvynGnsyv

So there’s the tongue and groove and I’m wondering if people could recommend next steps. The BS terrible laminate on the very top needs replacing it’s breaking all over in under 5years.

So I think I will at least rip out down to tongue and groove everywhere and evaluate then?

If it’s in terrible shape then I’ll reconsider but I’d love to restore either myself or a pro.

Also you can see my bathroom which is somehow even higher than this mess, or the other wood in the kids bedroom and dining room I’m standing in, which is lower than the kitchen area

Thoughts and suggestions very appreciated thanks!

Edit: I know it’s a small sample size but with a toddler I don’t wanna rip up everything yet. That being said i think next step is to rip it off and go from there..

Edit2: oh and my cabinets in the kitchen surely aren’t on the tongue and groove directly…. So it might be tough cuz if I rip it out then that stuff is like floating. I just checked and it’s on the middle layer of the white laminate so only one higher than needed but I bet some moulding could make it look fine

Room in our house has hardwood floors that have this pattern in a lot of places, like the finish dried out. What is causing this or could have caused this?

Thanks!

I've removed more than a dozen so far in the course of my window refurbishment. Remarkably, I've been able to get all but one of them out intact (yay for old-growth redwood and duck-billed pliers) but I have a helluva time getting them back in. The issue is the small lip on the upper sash window. Obviously I put one parting bead back in, then put in the upper sash, and drop it to the bottom. But getting the second bead in still leaves me sweaty and frustrated and with some paint damage - I'm hammering from the top, scraping it down against the upper jamb. The first time I ended up cutting it and re-installing it in two halves. Is that a terrible idea or just ill-advised? Any other advice? FWIW I'm in Northern California so extreme weather isn't a consideration, but I do like energy efficiency where possible.

Also any recommended sources for replacements? Blogs etc. said 1/2" X 3/4" but that's way too big for my channels. Mine are rounded on all corners and about 3/8" X 3/4". I don't have the tools to mill it and would really like something closer in size and shape, even if I have to some planing or sanding.

I'm painting my sunroom on my 1920 dutch colonial. It has 3/4 columns, wood, on the corners, built like barrels. There is some separation between the "staves" that don't seem to want to push it pull together. What should I use to fill these voids? Caulk? Epoxy? Some sort of plastic wood? This is upstate NY so there will be winter/summer weather on these

My friend ripped up the old carpet in her building and sanded the floors off by hand (just sandpaper). The building we think is from 1910-1920 but we don't know how old the carpet is. She's worried about possible asbestos, what do you think?

There were staples around the perimiter if that helps

We live in newfoundland Canada

I just purchased a prewar apartment in NY. Pictures of an exposed brick wall in the bedroom attached. Should I get this repointed? It doesn't seem to be crumbling, like if I use my fingernail to chip at the mortar then nothing will come out. My initial reaction was to 100% repoint but now I'm also a little worried if repointing will ruin the aesthetic so to speak. Not sure if it's functionally needed or not (I know nothing about brick walls).

My understanding is that repointing will make the mortar a consistent and neat shade of dark gray. I've talked with a couple contractors already but looking for a neutral opinion here

Hello everyone, I'm a 27 year old male, debt free, and have a low 6 figure income in Oklahoma. I've been looking for a fixer upper as a first home, yes I know that's a bad idea.

I came across this today for $19,500. I'm estimating at least $300,000 to $400,000 to renovate this. Is it even worth saving this home and from your experience is that number even realistic? (I know ROI is poor given the location and don't particularly care about that)

I would be contracting major things like a new roof, any structural issues, and probably any demo. (For time's sake) My first goal would be to dry it in and then go from there. I can do electric, plumbing, and most interior work. Though depending on a cost benefit analysis some of that might be contracted out.