Indholdsfortegnelse for September 2019 i Old House Journal

There’s a tendency to think of America’s “old houses” as falling into three big categories: Colonial, Victorian, and Craftsman. An over-simplification, of course: “Colonial” might encompass everything from First Period through Greek Revival; “Victorian” runs from Gothic Revival through Second Empire and Queen Anne; “Craftsman” enfolds California bungalows and the Prairie School. Some people insist that an old-house designation ends with the Second World War, as building technology changed so much during the 1940s. Others are ready to add a fourth broad category, Modern, bringing Cli. May ranches and Wright’s Usonian houses into the fold. What’s been overlooked? I’d say it’s the large number of historical revival houses built from ca. 1915 through about 1950. Nostalgic, nicely detailed, familiarly modern, and carpenter-built, these are the American Foursquares, Dutch Colonials, Tudors,…

SEATTLE, WA / $1,158,000 This unusual, tri-roofed Craftsman built in 1904 is loaded with Arts & Crafts details and restored wood trim, including leaded-glass windows, a spindled staircase, pocket doors, and, in the dining room, a colonnade, built-in buffet, and natural wood French doors. HOUSTON, TX / $920,000 Tapered porch columns on brick piers, an expansive verandah, lattice casement windows, and bracketed eaves welcome you to this 1910 American Foursquare with bungalow details. Inside: the original staircase, mantels, door and window trim, and a clawfoot tub. ST. PAUL, MN / $159,900 Leaning into Prairie Style, this stucco twin house built in 1910 draws us with a pedimented porch entry mirrored in the third-storey dormer. The interior retains much original woodwork, including plate rail-height paneling and a leaded-glass buffet. MOUNTAIN LAKES,…

Built in a vaguely “colonial” style sometime in the mid-20th century, this Milwaukee lakefront house was ripe for reinvention. The house was solid, but rooms lacked character and dimension, says Nicholas Blavat of Deep River Partners, who oversaw the transformation: “We wanted to work with its good bones and extend the Colonial Revival style throughout the house.” • Simple changes included replacing one-piece crown moulding in the living room with a deeper two-piece crown, and repeating the unusual shouldered trim mouldings found in the house. • Plain bookcases that had been on either side of the enlarged opening in what’s now the dining room were transformed into glass display cabinets. “We used that as a way to create character while adding storage,” Blavat says. In what’s now the family room…

The inglenook was popularized by late-19th-century architects working in the Shingle and early Colonial Revival styles. Boston architect H.H. Richardson sometimes gets credit with importing the idea—two fixed bench seats on either side of a fireplace—from England. He certainly used it in many of his interiors. Window seats and built-in benches have no clear time of origin. The fancy ones have custom-fit cushions and concealed storage underneath. The built-in breakfast nook is associated with early-20th-century bungalows.…

“We buy these antique houses because we love antique houses. But once you start taking pieces away from it, you don’t have an antique anymore.”—ALISON HARDY, WINDOW WOMAN OF NEW ENGLAND To hear owner Alison Hardy explain it, her Amesbury (Mass.) workshop is actually a hospital for ailing windows. On a bright day, sunlight streams through the many windows at Window Woman of New England, where 15 artisans scrape, putty, paint, and tap window sashes back into shape and send them into the next century. Alison Hardy is a strong—make that obsessed—advocate for repairing rather than replacing windows. She’s chairman for the Window Preservation Alliance, an organization that advocates preserving original windows for their beauty, craftsmanship, and energy efficiency. “Original windows are so much better built than new windows,” says…

Bungalow may seem to some like a synonym for cottage, but in its heyday it was prized both for its exotic, Anglo–Indian associations and for its artistic naturalism. Early in the 20th century, the bungalow had close ties to the Arts & Crafts movement. The bungalow showed up in the U.S. in the 1880s, but it was its development in Southern California that paved the way for its new role as a year-round house. BUNGALOWS came from India, sort of—variations of the word existed for hundreds of years before any bungalows showed up in England or the U.S. Long, low buildings with wide verandahs and deeply overhanging eaves, “bunguloues” were temporary and quickly erected shelters, built for Englishmen by native labor in India. Around 1870, the builders of newly fashionable…

The Victorian period lasted a long time—Queen Victoria was the English monarch from 1837 to 1901—and comprises many different styles of architecture and decoration. Still, when they hear the word Victorian, many people think of the carved furniture and heavily embellished rooms of the mid-19th century—a time when the Rococo and Renaissance Revivals were in full sway. Originating in France, what came to be known as Rococo Revival was inspired by the gilded elegance of Louis XIV and Louis XV styles. Ornate and exuberant, celebrating nature with floral and botanical motifs—and a cavorting cherub or two—Victorian Rococo stands in contrast to the spare neoclassicism of the Greek Revival houses and Empire furniture that preceded it. By the 1850s, the Rococo Revival had become synonymous with the carved furniture of John…

1. FAIRYLAND TRUNK The Strawberry Thief steamer trunk is part of a collaboration between Morris & Co. and another British heritage brand. Lined with a chromatic version of the same Morris pattern, the trunk is covered in a water-resistant, high-performance fabric laminated for protection; $1,198.50. Selamat Designs, (800) 395-8760, selamatdesigns.com 2. CUSTOM PORTIERES This custom portiere (door curtain) panel is crafted of heavyweight Craftsman linen in Olive, hand-appliquéd and-embroidered with ginkgo leaves, a favorite Arts & Crafts motif. The panel measures 40" wide x 82" long, $750. From Arts & Crafts Period Textiles, (510) 654-1645, textilestudio.com 3. WEAVING A NEST This juried textile artist incorporates stories into intricately stitched works like the Nest floor pillows. Embroidered on Belgian linen, each 26" x 26" pillow evokes a stylized bird’s nest. $850.…

This is the story of a real-estate flip—our first. It has been financially successful, but even better, it rescued a 1910 house headed for demolition while adding curb appeal to the whole street. It all started with a group email from Jason to Garrett and me: “Hey Guys, I work with a realtor, Linda Tracy–Ryburn, who lists a lot of houses in the Oklahoma City Historic District. She’s looking for renovated houses to sell. I think we ought to go in together, buy this house, and sell it. Linda says it’s a great deal!” I opened the email attachment and looked at the pictures. My first thought was, “Is this a joke?” The place was a dump; it didn’t need renovation, it needed a bulldozer! Then again, I trust my…

A Labor of Love When I was 18, I spent a summer stripping painted glazing putty from hundreds of windows in what is now the Tudor Arms Hotel, built in Cleveland in 1933. After soaking the windows for hours in paint stripper, I’d then chip away any remaining putty. Sometimes it would come right out, sometimes it would stick. Occasionally, the glass would break. At times the stripper would do so much damage to the wood that it warped, nearly ruining the sash. If any putty was left, I would warm it with a heat gun and chip it out—also at risk to the precious glass. Now that I’m restoring my own windows, one of my goals is to save as many of the original panes of 130-year-old glass as…

1. EIGHT-WAY SCRAPER The 8-Cut Scraper has eight sharp cutting edges in a single blade, beveled to prevent surface damage. The scraper may be flipped and rotated as needed, and the easy-grip knob allows you to apply more pressure on stubborn paint or caulk. $74.99. Eco-Strip, (703) 940-9425, eco-strip.com 2. WELL SHAPED The rotating triangular face of the glazier’s hammer is ideally shaped for gently forcing points or brads into place on window sash or frame. Use the round face (on the opposite end) to pin corners, flatten points, or for simple hammering jobs. $28.50. Lee Valley Tools, (800) 871-8158, leevalley.com 3. A BETTER STRIPPER Strip multiple layers of paint safely with a single application of Blue Bear Paint Stripper with Safenol. It’s free from methylene chloride and n-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP).…

Time moves slowly in Columbus, Mississippi, a small town in the heart of the South. Gene Imes was born and raised here; he remembers riding horses in the pastures around Rosedale—an imposing country mansion that hadn’t changed since it was built in 1856. Designed in the picturesque Italian Villa style following an architectural plate from Samuel Sloan’s 1852 pattern book Victorian Buildings, it has bracketed eaves, arched windows, and a square tower (based on the classic Italian campanile, or bell tower). Who could resist the challenge? Finding a soaring campanile, the grand entry hall, 14-foot ceilings, and separate parlors for ladies and gents, the owners felt a calling to restore the 1856 villa, right down to finishes and furniture. When Gene and his wife, Leigh, were house hunting in 1997,…

“My childhood memories are of my parents working on this house,” says Joyce Block. “It was their never-ending project: wallpapering, uncovering the wood floors, refinishing woodwork … they were hard-working and meticulous, and so proud of their home.” The brick Tudor in Minnetonka, Minnesota, was designed by an architect for a doctor; it had seen almost no renovation. When Joyce’s parents bought it in 1965, her father—also an architect—designed a large, gabled dormer to be built at the rear. That added space to the upstairs bedroom shared by five girls: “My dad had four kids and my mom had four kids,” Joyce explains. “We were the original Brady Bunch, and a couple of years later we welcomed a new sibling. Nine kids, and mom and dad, in a three-bedroom house!”…

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As I stripped and sanded the sash, I noticed the wood was weathered and grey. After the paint failed on the exposed sides, the sun continued to bake the windows and water from rain and snow penetrated all the way to the wood. This left the wood deteriorated, ready for fungal attack and eventual failure. To rehabilitate the wood, I used a trick I learned from Jade Mortimer of Heartwood Restoration. It’s something called BLO-Pentine, a mixture of boiled linseed oil (or BLO) and turpentine: BLOP for short. It’s a recipe that’s been suggested in Old-House Journal since the 1970s. Boiled linseed oil is a favorite of woodworkers for its ability to protect unfinished wood. When dealing with dry, sun-damaged wood, however, linseed oil alone sits on the surface, not…

When family and newborn photographer Erin Tole [erintolephotography.com] purchased a 19th-century house in Vancouver, Washington, its big corner lot was a main attraction. Beyond her vegetable and flower gardens, the edges of the yard were leveled with a stone retaining wall and a stone patio laid over well-drained gravel and sand. For years, Erin had been collecting vintage windows with leaded, clear, stained, and colored glass. (Her recommended source is Aurora Mills Architectural Salvage, auroramills.com.) This collection was incorporated into a “she shed” at the edge of the patio. Favorite stained glass pieces were placed in front and centered on the back wall; two sets of hinged French doors open wide or provide ventilation. The polycarbonate roof is translucent. for a similar project 1. ZONING AND LAYOUT Always start by…

TO BE CLOSER TO FAMILY, Gwen Jones decided in 2007 to move to Portland, Oregon. And artist and craftsperson with knowledge of period design, Gwen had a pretty good idea of what she wanted: an old house, comfortable, not a fixer-upper, with room for her floorcloth-making business. (A floorcloth is heavy canvas, sized and stretched, filled and decoratively painted; also known as an oilcloth, it’s a precursor to linoleum.) GETTING THE COLORS RIGHT Gwen Jones repainted every room in the house to produce a warm, Craftsman-era sensibility. Her tips: 1 Especially if you have furnishings and textiles of the era, coordinate wall color with them for a balanced palette that ties the room together. 2 Harmony is crucial. Arts & Crafts palettes have a rich, quiet, earthy character reflecting colors…

Colorful, textural brick façades sprouted like wildflowers in the Thirties, Forties, and Fifties. The sales pitches were certainly clever. I suspect that these examples illustrate a change from texture to tone during the years between the wars—and period examples are worth appreciation and preservation. Around 1930, as the larger world awoke to the exigencies of global economic collapse, the brick industry seems to have clung sleepily to the textural theatrics that had served it so well in the previous two decades. When the fashion for English, Norman, and Tudor Revival houses took hold after 1900, texture was the way to create ersatz iterations of late-medieval masonry. (Many houses were, however, built with veneer brick over terra-cotta block or stud-framed walls. The emphasis was all surface.) Texture came from a party…

Bradbury & Bradbury It will always feel like summer with “Metford” Frieze crowning your room. This playful and elegant border is part of our newly released “Jeffrey” roomset. Shown here in Cerulean, available in two colorways. 707-746-1900; www.bradbury.com Classic Gutter Systems, LLC Classic Gutter Systems, LLC offers a complete half round gutter system in copper, aluminum and Galvalume including an extensive selection of cast fascia and downspout brackets and unique accessories. Ask us about our new custom radius gutter in half round and K-Style options. 269-665-2700; www.classicgutters.com The Color People EVERYONE DREAMS IN COLOR For over 30 years we have been making people’s dreams come true all over America with our famous color consulting service. We create color schemes for every style and era of buildings, residential and commercial. 720-545-7071;…

CLASSIC HOMES OF ROCK-FACE BLOCK “I live in a 1906 American Foursquare; seeing this once grand old lady near Pittsburgh made me very sad,” writes the OHJ reader who snapped the photos. The house with the compromised porch, resized windows, and boxy addition was built of decorative concrete block. So is the transitional Colonial Revival house nearby, shown above, which has fared better. Concrete block (aka ornamental block, cast block, rock-face block) was popular from the end of the 19th century through the Depression years. Sears sold concrete-block houses as kits, complete with the simple machine (also sold separately) for moulding blocks on site. The moulded face might look like plain ashlar, a beveled panel, cobblestone, brick, or rough-cut rock. Ornamental rope, wreath, and scroll designs also were made. Decorative…