Innehållsförteckning för June 2020 från Old House Journal

Wallpapering is, apparently, hilarious. Enough so to have been memorialized in popular songs that have Father, Papa (or, occasionally, Sammy) messing up as the paste flies and the family scatters. I learned of this when wallpaper historian Bo Sullivan [bollingco.com] shared a note he’d gotten from Brooklyn reader Rob Donohoe, who wrote: “This is a song my mother, who is now 96, taught me, which her father used to sing to her. He was born in 1887. Enjoy the lyrics.” One version of the song seems to have been published (if not written) in 1914. It goes like this: When father hung the paper on the wall, /He put the parlor paper in the hall. /He papered all the stairs! /He papered all the chairs! /He put the border on…

A new shed is the jewel and the architectural hub of the property. The garage is behind it, on the lower slope. A pull-off parking spot near the house remains, but the clients wanted a place to keep cars out of the New England weather. The lot configuration, along with zoning and conservation restrictions, made it impossible for a garage to be built close to the house. To make the walk from the garage to the house feel like a shorter, more interesting experience, “we designed it as a series of events,” Shirley says. “Pulling into the carriage house is already insulation from the street. Then you exit through a mudroom to a small porch, and from there to a short run of stone steps, through a gate, past the…

The Connecticut house offered generously proportioned rooms with high ceilings, but previous remodeling had left it “simplified.” Gone were the roof cresting and soaring finials, the gable decoration and porch pediment. Woodwork of oak, chestnut, and redwood had been slathered in Colonial Revival white. Architect David Scott Parker has a special affinity for the Aesthetic Movement, and knows it would have influenced the interior design and furnishing of an “artistic” house in 1882. Parker worked with the homeowners to create artistic, historically accurate rooms, but ones that would serve modern expectations. Now, the Music Room and Solarium are in the Aesthetic taste, with a generous helping of Arabesque design. The master bedroom’s gilded mantel and strapwork ceiling were inspired by James McNeil Whistler’s Peacock Room in London (now installed at…

When David Berman of Trustworth Studios was asked to re-create the dining room paper at Ragdale, built by architect Howard Van Doren Shaw in 1897 as his family’s summer retreat near Chicago, he was given a sepia-tinted photo of the room and a few “flitters,” Berman’s term for remnants, found behind mouldings. “It’s not very much to base a repeat on, but I could see the superstructure from the photograph,” he says. Berman was able to interpret what kind of leaves and blossoms were in the pattern. As he patched together a full repeat—the overall pattern that “repeats” and can be matched up on the wall as the paper is hung—“a leaf on a flitter would in fact align with the pattern. The end result is credible and looks good.”…

Designed by Philip Webb and completed in 1894 as a summer house for the Beale family, Standen is probably the most intact Arts & Crafts dwelling in the United Kingdom and one of the most popular National Trust sites. The original owners lavished the walls with Morris & Co. papers, including areas normally only seen by servants; notably, ‘Mallow’, a Kate Faulkner design from 1879, was hung along the servants’ staircase. asked today’s Morris & Co. to reproduce new paper for the light-damaged areas. A section of the wall, original paper intact, was removed and shipped to the Anstey factory for color matching.• “There were actually two slightly different shades of the same colorway on the wall, so the question was which color to match to,” says Alison Keane, PR manager…

Sometimes finding a match for original siding is easier said than done. Given the scarcity of old-growth wood, sourcing lumber of the same cut and quality as the clapboards on an 18th-century dwelling can be an exercise in frustration. And no one would want to re-side a 1950s Ranch house with asbestos-cement siding, even if it were still available. Fortunately, mills still exist that cut clapboards the old-fashioned way, out of tightly grained wood; and believe it or not, you can still find fiber-cement shingles—minus the asbestos—that are dead ringers for the ridge-textured ones found on mid-century Ranch houses. Some materials are sold in both traditional squares and as preassembled systems that make them quicker and easier to install. Lap siding is likely the oldest form of wood cladding in…

Becky and Matt Cattani had a pet deli and boutique in Santa Cruz; when they moved to Nevada City, Calif., they opened Moon Doggies Motel [moondoggiesmotel.wordpress.com] and began making vintage-style pet beds from salvaged chairs. Buy from their stock or supply your own chair. For DIYers, the project is pretty straightforward, they say. It just requires some planning along with basic woodworking tools and a sewing machine. Start with a wooden chair, maybe one with a pressed or carved back, and certainly not a valuable antique. the process 1. DISASSEMBLY Remove the chair seat: Some can simply be unscrewed, but removal may require sawing through the wooden supports between the chair legs to get the seat to completely separate. If the chair has a cushioned or jute seat, remove it…

OUTDOOR SPACES ARCHITECTS Frank Shirley Architects, Cambridge, MA: frankshirleyarchitects.com GENERAL CONTRACTOR F.H. Perry Builder, Hopkinton, MA: fhperry.com LANDSCAPE DESIGN Michael Coutu, Sudbury Design Group, Sudbury and Osterville, MA: landscapearchitectureboston.com WINDOWS, DOORS (thermal, all wood, custom) Dynamic Windows, Vancouver: dynamicwindows.com CABINET MAKER Coastal Woodworking, Peabody, MA: (978) 532-8996 EXTERIOR LANTERNS/SCONCES Steven Handelman Studios stevenhandelmanstudios.com Related Resources EXTERIOR HARDWARE Acorn Mfg. acornmfg.com Iron builder’s hardware, including gate latches & strap hinges Historic Housefitters historichousefitters.com Hand-forged gate pulls, latches, bolts The Kings Bay thekingsbay.com Wrought iron gate latches & hinges SHEDS Country Carpenters countrycarpenters.com New England-style post & beam garden shed kits KITCHENS + BATHS ARCHITECT David Scott Parker Architects, Southport, CT: dsparker.com FRETWORK/CARVING David Bishop Woodworking, Bridgeport, CT: bishopwoodworking.net LEADED GLASS Renaissance Studios, Westport, CT: renaissanceststudios.com GLASS SCONCES ‘Tribeca’ from Urban Archaeology urbanarchaeology.com Related Resources BATH FITTINGS House of Antique Hardware houseofantiquehardware.com Victorian-era faucets and tub fittings Mark…

Even with the additional lot, the site presented a host of restrictions. Zoning and environmental conservation rules were non-negotiable. The sloping site has an eight-foot drop, front to back. And, although the original lot is oceanfront, it’s also on a main street in a dense, historic neighborhood. Visual privacy and a barrier to sound were paramount concerns. “Planting trees does nothing to create quiet,” Frank Shirley says. “You do that with density, with obstruction. Thus we have the tall privacy fences, the stone walls. And buildings. We staggered the new shed, and the new garage behind it, to create an auditory barrier. “The owner knew she wanted a fire pit, and that became a garden room next to her studio–shed,” Shirley says. Behind it is access to the carriage house.…

Adelphi Paper Hangings reproduced ‘Chestertown Vine’ from a discolored fragment found in an 18th-century building in Chestertown, Maryland. Rather than flock the dominant floral pattern as in the original—a time-consuming and messy process—Adelphi opted to print it as a tone-on-tone design. The reproduction is printed the traditional way, with wood blocks in a press.…

My hosts from Style/Library and Morris & Co. took care of that for me and our small group of magazine editors and designers, last September. After a much-too-short visit to the famous house Standen, we landed at Morris & Co.’s archives and design studio in Denham. Archivist Keren Protheroe showed us samples from the nearly intact collection, which includes textile samples, pattern books, and, most interesting, ledgers with annotated designs. “The ledger is where they’d use a spectrometer to take an accurate color off the original,” Dr. Protheroe says. “We have four of [Morris’s] books that go from the first papers printed in 1864 through the ones in 1895.” Anstey Wallpaper Co. in Loughborough is where wallpapers from many designer brands in the U.K. and the U.S. are made using…

WRONG WAY USING COMMON TOOLS When removing the deteriorated surface mortar in preparation for repointing, avoid using a chisel or angle grinder, which can damage the brick face. The narrowest, readily available pointing trowels are probably not thin enough for butter joints. Even with care, it is impossible to repoint this type of joint without pressing mortar onto the brick surface, altering the appearance. RIGHT WAY MODIFYING A TROWEL To clean the joints to a uniform depth of about one-half inch, use an oscillating tool with a blade designed to remove the grout between ceramic tile. To repoint, file or grind down the sides of an ordinary pointing trowel to the approximate width of the joint. I also find it easier to use if the length of the trowel is…

An unassuming gabled Victorian on Long Island, the house was built ca. 1856 by Edward Howell, a Hamptons whaling captain. The house stayed in his family until the late 1970s. Set on three acres of orchards and farmland, it had never been significantly altered. The designer Ann Pyne came upon the property on a grey and blustery day in the fall of 1983, and she immediately felt at home. Ann Pyne isthe daughter of legendary interior designer Betty Sherrill, the late chairman of McMillen Inc., New York City’s oldest continually operating design firm. Ann says that her mother humored her but never truly understood the love her daughter developed for the 19th-century antiques she collected to furnish the simple Victorian house. The old house had been maintained by the Howells…

Adelphi Paper Hangings Makers of authentic, woodblock-printed wallpapers and borders. Full line of documented patterns circa 1750-1850. 518-284-9066; www.adelphipaperhangings.com Bradbury & Bradbury Art Wallpapers “St. James” in Gold “St. James” available now in shimmering Gold! Originally designed by William Morris in 1881 for St. James’s Palace, now handprinted to order in our Benicia, California studio. 707-746-1900; www.bradbury.com Chelsea Decorative Metal Our pressed tin designs come on 2’ x 4’ sheets Giving you the 2 by 4 Advantage • Easier & Faster Installation• Covers more area (8 sq. ft.)• Fewer seams and a more uniform install Chelsea Decorative Metal The Company for you 713-721-9200; www.tinman.com Classic Ceilings Tin ceilings, embossed metal tin ceiling panels, and cornices with custom antique finishes. Nationwide shipping. 800-992-8700 www.classicceilings.com The Color People EVERYONE DREAMS IN COLOR…

Mature trees and and a shade garden occupy space between the house, one end of the pool, and the property line, where two existing storage sheds were upgraded with new light fixtures and a color sheme matching other buildings. The formality of the upper garden comes from an axial arrangement of brick paving, granite cobble edging, and trimmed boxwood.…

1. BARREL TILE IN METAL At 98 pounds per square, a durable, lightweight alternative to clay barrel tile comes from Matterhorn Tile. The product has superior wind, fire, and impact resistance, plus a 50-year life expectancy. Cool-roof options are available, too. Metal Roofing Alliance estimate: $800–$1,500 per square. Certainteed, (800) 782-8777, certainteed.com 2. A ROOF BALCONY Open up a steep room in the gable to light and air with these innovative, standup balcony windows. They’re shielded on the side with safety barriers, and offer enough space to sit with a morning coffee. In 30" x 100" and 37" x 100" sizes: $3,650 to $3,950. FAKRO USA, (630) 543-1010, fakrousa.com 3. ROUNDED END CAPS Securely cap the ends of gutters with reverse beaded spherical end caps in copper or chromated aluminum.…

Steps cover repainting of previously painted wood such as clapboards and trim. You can, of course, do some work yourself and hire pros for the rest. Consider tackling one side of the house per year. • Do any carpentry repairs beforehand, including replacement or consolidation of damaged elements. Be sure you have adequately prepared surfaces to support a ladder. Trim shrubbery that’s too close to the siding. Cover plantings with fabric (not heat-trapping plastic) tarps and remove them at night. Using painter’s tape and plastic, mask lamps, mailboxes, meters, etc. as well as windows. Use drop cloths on the ground to contain detergent and scrapings. STEP-BY-STEP 1. SCRUB AND RINSE The use of a power washer is effective—when done well by someone with experience. The method has the potential to damage…

Following the Civil War and the nation’s return to economic prosperity, ornately decorated interiors proliferated. Properly furnished rooms were a sign of education and good taste, and a way to show off one’s wealth. Furniture makers began producing furniture in exotic styles from Renaissance to Modern Gothic. George Hunzinger The cabinetmaker immigrated to the United States from Würrttemberg, Germany, in 1855, and opened a furniture business in New York City, which he operated with his son until George Sr.’s death in 1898. Hunzinger produced a wide range of “fancy” chairs, folding and lounge chairs, platform rockers, tables, settees, and daybeds. Hunzinger sometimes featured geometric elements such as cones and spheres, and his well-known “lollipops” still seem modern. His designs were functional, often influenced by mechanics, and not purely historical. Hunzinger…

“We wanted something a little neglected, but not changed,” Rosemarie Padovano says of the old-house search she undertook with Marcello Marvelli. The couple had no interest in taking on a complete restoration, nor did they relish unraveling work “done by somebody who had too much money and too little taste,” as Marcello puts it. The two had discovered Old Lyme, Connecticut, when they spent time on their sailboat in Stonington Harbor nearby. Beginning to tire of city life in Brooklyn, they began a search for an artistic old house. Rosemarie Padovano is a sculptor and interior designer. Marcello Marvelli is an antiques dealer and art historian with a Ph.D. in Medieval and Renaissance art from the University of Florence in his native Italy. Aesthetics were important. It took two years,…

WANT FREE INFORMATION ON OLD HOUSE PRODUCTS AND SERVICES? Simply visit www.oldhouseonline.com/lit to order your free information today! Acorn Manufacturing Pages 32, 81 Adelphi Paper Hangings Pages 42, 80 Alameda Shade Shop Page 46 Allied Window Inc. Pages 17, 81 American International Tool Industries Pages 52, 81 Arch Angle Windows & Doors Page 81 Bradbury & Bradbury Wallpaper Pages 27, 80 Charles P. Rogers & Company Page 27 Chelsea Decorative Metal Pages 47, 80 Classic Ceilings Page 80 Classic Gutter Systems Pages 47, 81 Classic Rock Face Block Page 81 Clay Squared To Infinity Page 81 The Color People Page 80 Country Carpenters Pages 32, 82 Crown Point Cabinetry Pages 13, 82 Donald Durham Company Page 46 Driwood Moulding Co. Pages 11, 80 Eco-Strip Pages 47, 82 Forbo Linoleum Pages…