Innehållsförteckning för January - February 2018 från Old House Journal

TIMOTHY NORTHUP knows for sure that the house was added to in 1876. “That date comes up in city records,” he says; “the original part of the house was most likely built around 1820 or a little later—though that’s speculation. He adds that the original house is post-and-beam construction, while the Victorian addition is balloon framed. | Northup may not know much about the house’s early days, but he knows it intimately, because this was his grandparents’ home. The 2,863-square-foot farmhouse is in the historic district in Oneonta, New York. Divide and Conquer Before his grandparents bought it in 1942, the old house was divided to become a duplex. When Timothy Northup moved in around 2010, the division stood and what is now a great room was a separate apartment.…

GEORGETOWN, KY / $540,000 The wide entry foyer in this 1840 center-hall Greek Revival is accented with ruby-glass sidelights, a circular staircase, and an intricate ribbon parquet floor. The brick house is enclosed by a period wrought-iron fence. GENEVA, NY / $549,000 A floating staircase and herringbone floors bordered by a Greek-key inlay welcome guests to this brick Italianate designed by renowned architect Andrew Jackson Warner in 1873. Details include chestnut doors, paneled arched doorways, period lighting, and original kitchen cabinets. PITTSBURGH, PA / $649, 9000 Built in 1873 during the city’s golden age, this Second Empire mansion has a foyer with a walnut staircase, lavished with period carpet and wallpaper. The townhouse has nine marble mantels and electrified gaslight fixtures. ST. JOSEPH, MO / $132,000 Entered through a door…

HOUR Replace a Light Switch Old light switches may give you trouble. If you’re comfortable with electricity and local codes allow, do this: Turn off the power. Use a flathead screwdriver to unscrew the switch plate, then a Phillips-head driver to undo the switch. Two or three wires may be connected to the switch: a hot wire in black, a neutral wire that’s not green and usually white, and a grounding wire that’s green or bare copper. Unscrew the wires and reattach them to the new switch in this order: hot wire to brass screw, neutral wire to silver screw, grounding wire to green screw. Use needle-nose pliers to wrap wires clockwise around screws. Tighten screws but don’t overdo it or you’ll crack the switch. Look for the word “top”…

Ship lights used for illumination and navigation boast simple, durable design. As salvage, these lights are wonderful for use indoors and out, as a wall sconce in the bath or on the porch, as a table lamp, even as path lighting in the garden. Once the fixture is rehabbed, you may need a shade; clear and frosted glass provide ample light. (You can always use a low-wattage or yellow or rosy-tone bulb.) For a table lamp, how about a shade crafted from a navigational chart, like those custom made by Skipjack Nautical Wares? a quick rehab 1. BLASTING AWAY Ship lights are often covered in thick marine paint encrusted with salt and debris. Big Ship Salvage prefers soda blasting (20 psi) for stripping: sodium bicarbonate shot with compressed air to…

Many old houses don’t come with en suite baths, or with enough bathrooms. Architects and owners have come up with ingenious ways to add them. Options boil down to two: put the new bathroom in an addition; or convert existing space for a powder room, three-quarter, or even a full bath. A conversion may take over a former bedroom (or trunk room or nursery), common for houses built before indoor plumbing. Other bathrooms are carved from “found space” under the stairs, in back-to-back closets, tucked into the eaves, or at the end of a hallway. A new bath for the master bedroom looks best when the rooms connect visually. The paint color or wallpaper might relate between rooms, trim details in the bath may echo those in the bedroom, and…

PAGE 54 “CAN YOU TELL THE DIFFERENCE?” ANSWER: The Heartwood Fine Windows & Doors installation on the bottom has true divided lights. But the doors, fanlight, and sidelights in the arched entry at center right have simulated divided light construction! heartwoodwindowsanddoors.com PRESENT VIEW ARCHITECT Howard Miller, The Johnson Partnership, Seattle WA: tjp.us INTERIOR DESIGNER Jennifer Randall ASID, Jennifer Randall & Associates, Seattle WA: jradesigns.com WALLPAPER powder room ‘Indian’; master bath ‘Bird and Pomegranate’, both Morris & Co. at Style/Library stylelibrary.com • library ‘Fir Tree Frieze’; sitting room ‘Tulip Frieze’, both Bradbury & Bradbury Art Wallpapers bradbury.com TILES powder room, sunporch concrete tiles Granada Tile granadatile.com • guest & master baths American Restoration Tile restorationtile.com; Daltile daltile.com • third-fl. bath Subway Mosaics subwaymosaics.com • kitchen tile custom Totten Tileworks tottentileworks.com •…

OLD HOUSE INSIDERS New books from OHJ contributors: D. Porthault, The Art of Luxury Linens by Brian D. Coleman and Erik Kvalsvik. (Gibbs Smith, 2017) On the heels of his books on Farrow & Ball and Fortuny, our West Coast editor brings us the fanciest one yet! Nothing DIY here, but you’ll swoon seeing gorgeous traditional and old-world rooms decorated with the fine linens of this centuryold French company. A Home Called New England by Duo Dickinson and Steve Culpepper. (Globe Pequot Press, 2017) Connecticut architect Dickinson takes us on a historical ramble in which houses are part of the material culture. The authors roam through its cities, villages and farms, churches, factories, and graveyards to lend insight into this prolific region. Read asides on child labor, P.T Barnum, the…

As shown through this sequence of window grille options from Marvin, deciding between simulated (SDL) or true (TDL) divided lights in insulated replacement windows often comes down to affordability versus architectural appearance. The least expensive double-glazed option is to place the muntin grille between the sheets of glass. While this gives the window a traditional appearance, the grid lacks dimension and won’t cast shadows like a true divided light window. A step up, architecturally and in price, is to apply a real wood grille overlay on the interior surface of the glass sash. The single overlay gives the window some architectural relief, but light shadows will still differ from those of true divided windows. The best SDLs offer architectural wood grilles on both exterior and interior glass surfaces. These double…

WRONG WAY THE OLD GOOP STANDBY The easiest and fastest “repair” consists of smearing the replacement slate with some form of adhesive, such as roofing cement, then sliding the shingle in place. (Or worse, just slathering roofing “tar” or cement over the broken area!) Unattractive as it is, that’ll prevent leaks in the short term; but given the dust produced by old slates, you have no way of knowing how much adhesive is in contact with sound material. Further, the adhered shingles cannot move during freeze/ thaw cycles. Finally, once they’re “glued” in place, the surrounding shingles cannot easily be replaced in the future. RIGHT WAY NEW SLATE WITH COVERED NAIL Using a slate or shingle ripper, clean out remnants of the old slate. Select a matching new or salvaged…

Subway Mosaics makes floor tiles of unglazed porcelain in both 1" and 2" hexagons, and in 24 colors. The mosaics are delivered 36 tiles to a sheet. Penny rounds and mosaic squares also available. subwaymosaics.com Kingston Brass’s ‘Potomac’ widespread bathroom faucet with white porcelain cross handles is made of solid brass and available in four finishes including satin nickel; $351.90 as shown, through houseofantiquehardware.com Do you know The Stencil Library? The U.K. company has wall stencils historical and contemporary, with many Arts & Crafts and Art Nouveau designs. Custom sizes; all accessories sold. Easy U.S. pay and ship. stencil-library.com Runtal Radiators has narrow and shallow hydronic (forced hot water) and electric units for baseboard, wall, floor-mount, even curved applications, all in a range of colors. Towel radiators, too. runtalnorthamerica.com…

1. AT THE TOP In a dozen finishes and glass options, the Pinnacle chandelier captures the clean lines of Frank Lloyd Wright Modernism. The four-light pendant is 22" wide x 10" high with a 32" extension. $806 and up. Arroyo Craftsman, (626) 960-9411, arroyocraftsman.com 2. VICTORIAN FANCY The Victorian Fancy Worded push plate is a re-creation of a P.F. Corbin original, ca. 1875. Made of brass using lost-wax casting, the plate measures 12 ¼" tall x 4" wide. Shown in the antique brass finish, $62.25. Vintage Hardware, (360) 379-9030, vintagehardware.com 3. SHEEN OF TERNE Inspired by a 19th-century French railroad-station lantern, the two-light Dordogne sconce looks fresh and novel in a farmhouse bathroom. In several finishes including basic and a special darkened terne, it's 18" wide x 12 ¼" wide.…

American Tudor Revival is among the most recognizable styles of domestic architecture. These picturesque houses, usually of brick or stone, fill entire suburban neighborhoods. English architecture had long influenced American taste, of course, from the Colonial houses of New England and Virginia, through the Gothic Revivals of the 19th century. But never was Anglophilia more apparent than during the Tudor craze. In the first wave, the wealthy asked their architects to build stone manors replete with Jacobean parapets and oriels. As the style peaked during the 1920s and ’30s, streetcar suburbs sprouted pitched-roof cottages with masonry veneer and decorative halftimbering. Mansion or cottage, the Tudor Revival house is usually asymmetrical and dominated by a steep, multi-gabled roof. Tudor HALLMARKS • STEEP GABLED ROOF Dramatic pitch and plunging eaves are common…

WELL PATCHED Patch small leaks in gutters, flashing, and shingles with Through the Roof, an ultra-clear caulk proven to last far longer that roof cement because it remains elastic over time. It’s available in quarts, gallons, and 10 ½-ounce cartridges. $9.88 to $62.99. Sashco, (800) 767- 5656, sashco.com HAPPY AS A CLAM Inspired by watertight technologies used in sailing, this single, fully assembled bulkhead is constructed of durable, maintenance-free fiberglass. The smooth-action door is feather light, easy to open and close. It comes in small (51" wide) and large (55" wide) sizes. $1,490 to $1,590. ClamDoor, (888) 344-2526, clamdoor.com HIGH TORQUE The DCF899P1 high-torque impact wrench with brushless motor will speed your way through countless fastening jobs. Powered by a lithium ion battery, the highly rated, 20-volt wrench has multi-speed…

CASEMENT WINDOW A projecting window hinged at the sides, which usually opens outward like a door. DOUBLE-HUNG WINDOW Two vertically sliding sash that bypass each other in a single frame. LIGHT A pane of glass or compartment of a window, usually expressed in terms of the number of panes per sash, as in 12 over 6 (12 lights in top sash, 6 lights in bottom). MUNTIN Narrow, milled wood strips that separate individual panes of glass in a window sash. SIMULATED DIVIDED LIGHT Usually found on double-glazed windows, an SDL is a window sash with a grid of superficial muntins on the interior and/or exterior of the glass. The best SDLs have spacer bars paralleling the grids between the sheets of glass. TRUE DIVIDED LIGHT This is a window sash…

After ignoring the problem for years, I got the idea to test-sand one of the rad tops in an outof- the-way spot. Shining steel appeared! With my well-loved orbital sander, I took the smaller radiator top that’s in the bedroom down to bare metal. Repeated sandings with successively finer sandpaper (100, 150, 220) produced a surface with the patina of old nickel. Now what to seal it with? Tommy, the previous owner, must have used a sealer that wasn’t impervious to rust, so I looked for a more durable coating formulated especially for metal. An online search turned up Permalac (permalac.com), a direct-to-surface clear coating for all kinds of metal. It dries very quickly and won’t change color or develop rust, two characteristics I was looking for. It also protects…

Two hands-on restorers transform a played-out bath into a bright, beautiful, period-inspired spa retreat. Remarkably, we used this nightmare of a bathroom daily for more than a decade before finally achieving our vision: a master-bath spa that looks appropriate in a Victorian-era house, complete with a marble mosaic hex tile floor, white subway tile shower, and a high wainscot of painted white beadboard finished with a moulded top rail. Blowing out the closets (we relocated them to a bedroom) meant we gained enough space to comfortably accommodate a large, two-person shower, a double vanity flanked by floor-to-ceiling cabinets, and a vintage clawfoot tub. The most luxurious touch is the shower, fitted with two 12” rainshowerheads bought years ago, when plans for our new bath were still just a sketch on…

With the wide acceptance of electricity and leisure time for reading and playing cards, floor and table lamps came into their own during the 1920s, ’30s, and ’40s. Still practical today, they add a touch of Art Nouveau, Deco, or Historical Revival style to a room. Floor lamps include torchieres (sending light toward the ceiling) and, later, various doubleand triple-bulb upright models. The bridge lamp got its name through the astounding popularity of bridge and other card games in the ’teens and ’20s. A bridge lamp is a floor lamp about 52"–60" high, with an extended arm that holds the shaded bulb in a downward position: perfect for illuminating the card table. With a decorative arm and tripod base, this reproduction is the ‘Waltham Floor Lamp’ for a three-way bulb,…