HOUSE TOUR: Inside a Glamorously Gut-Renovated Home
Gizmo
5 months ago
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Kswl
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HGTV House Tour- What did everyone think?
Comments (38)If you think HGTV would do a makeover on an older home and give that away, think again. This is all about promoting the products of the companies who provide them, all the manufacturing done in China and India, and undocumented citizens build the houses. It should be called show home international. Having a friend who owns a much nicer house than the one they are "giving away" in that area, with a price tag slightly above that, I am sure with a price reduction this house can be sold, but who would want the burden of not knowing if you had a buyer the day you won it in order to not have to mortgage your home, children and family just to be the unlucky winner....See MoreMy daughter has joined the small house club! Picture tour here.
Comments (15)"How cool dilly dally! Does your bathroom have the original toilet & sink? Was the sink a wall hung one? And are the shower doors original or were they added later? There is a curtain rod above the shower doors and we can't figure out why there are both." No, I checked the date on the toilet when I was looking at the real estate and it was replaced in 1982. (You can look under the tank lid to see the date stamp.) I'm not sure about the sink. It is one that hangs off the wall though. The tub I know is original. It is the same as the one you show with the wider ledge in the middle. My shower rod was installed so that the curtain hung inside the tub. I moved it so the curtain hangs outside. No shower doors. (Thank gawd. I hate them.) I don't think shower doors would be original with a tub like that. My tub is grody. No shine left on it and it always looks dirty. I've looked into replacing it but there is no way to get it out without damaging tiles I was told and the size is so odd that a replacement to fit exactly is impossible. I may have to buy one of those acrylic tub recovers to get a decent tub that looks clean. The original "shower head" was called a 'Victorian' I found out. It was like a stick on a hinge from the wall, low, about waist high. You moved it up and tiled the hinged head to shower. Or you moved it straight down to fill the tub. I liked it. I had to replace it when it broke and could not find anything like it. They don't make them any more. I had to redo the whole works adding separate faucet and showerhead and controls. You probably have a built in ironing board in the kitchen. Most of them end up getting converted into spice cabinets. Mine still had the original wood ironing board in it and although I do iron a lot I did not want to iron on an old stinky wood thing. The built in wall ironing boards that they seel nowdays to do not retro fit into these old ones. I made mine into a spice cabinet by adding little shelves. I'm glad I did it this way. It's one thing to be a purist and try to preserve the ingerity of a vintage home but if it means wasted space with a non functioning widget - it goes. There is also a thing built into the wall in the basement that I had thought was an old mangle in the laundry room at first. (They were popular in that era.) There was a slit in the wall by it. There was a built-in long table in the rec room by the slit on the other side of the wall. I figured out that it was made to hold a roll of kraft paper to pull through the slit to use as a disposable table cover. I know they still sell rolls of table kraft paper like this for restaurants, so I could use it but I never throw dinner parties in my basement and don't have kids who do crafts. "The original must have been one with long pipes." I still have the original. It did not work when I bought the house. I found out when I took it apart to repair, that the pipes do not create the sound. There was a sort of xylophone thingy inside that made the actual sound. The pipes were for decoration only. If I had not been able to repair it, I was going to get a wireless chime to install elsewhere in the house and use the alcove for holding a decorative vase or something. "It's when you cut or break it that it releases fibers and causes problems." True. Some people do not know about asbestos tile and try to chisel it up without proper proceedure. I've had to warn neighbors about this. They had no idea. Make sure you let you DD know about http://savethepinkbathrooms.com if she does not already. And also http://retrorenovation.com/category/by-decade/1960s-by-decade/ Here is a link that might be useful: Pink...See MoreTake a gander at this whole house renovation
Comments (22)Having had three new builds in the past, I can report that renovating my 1939 house has been expensive and slow...and still isn't complete because we've tried to keep 1939 original parts and remove the 1950s, 1990s updates that were done, handle asbestos and lead. I bought the house in February last year. I could have been finished in a few months if we had gutted the house to modernize it, and I could have saved more than $100,000 by doing so. I think that is why so many older homes are gutted and modernized. It's very expensive to restore an older home. I've put more into my renovation than the local market would indicate as wise. Houses here are priced by square foot, not the level of quality/details/fixtures. Sad. But, I bought in a highly desirable, walkable old neighborhood. My original plaster ceilings and walls were repaired, not removed. It was tedious. There is lath in the walls behind the plaster. Gutting would have been done in 1-2 days instead of a month of repairs. I had to replace electrical and plumbing, but since we didn't gut the house, this was done, one wire/pipe at a time. The electrician and plumbers didn't come in once to rough-in and come back for final. No, they've been here off and on, almost every week since May because the walls weren't opened up. The trim, such as crown moulding, isn't one piece like today's trim. It is in separate pieces, built up. My carpenter meticulously replicated that trim on-site on his machines, for my addition (where I did take liberties with my new master bath and kitchen, in terms of decor, but not trim). Any pieces we removed to widen (note, we didn't remove walls, we made wider openings) the dining room, we saved and used in other places, such as wainscot for the powder room that had been renovated in the 1950s with tile walls. I kept the tiny sink and put down marble hex floors. The kitchen cabinets (not original to the house, looked like 1990s due to hinges and shelf supports) were repurposed for the back hallway as extra pantry space, in the laundry for storage and in the basement. There were two large bookcases, but not built-in. One is now my shoe storage in my master closet and the other is in the basement for storage. I kept all internal doors and door hardware, including skeleton keys. A previous owner had messed up the fireplace, so we used black slate to cover the damaged brick that was chipped and painted. The hardwoods were refinished and I used the same size oak for the addition. The original upstairs bath -- I had the cast iron tub refinished; replaced the 1950s tile and 1990s vinyl with white subway on the walls and white hex on the floor. I tried FOUR faucets in trying to keep the 1950s shelf-back sink and none fit. I finally had to replace the sink with something that went with the look. I took liberties in the addition. My kitchen addition has white cabinets, but I went with modern bar pulls (but no knobs on cabinets) to keep it simple. My backsplash is penny round white porcelain tile--something from the era used in a different way. I couldn't use anything linear due to the floors/ceilings of the original part are no longer level after 75 years. The round tile fools the eye. On the outside, my kitchen is off the side, balancing the sunroom on the other side. There's a chippendale balustrade on the (nearly) flat top that is like those of other homes in the same style in my city. My master bath addition is more 1930s Parisian influence than American. That's my luxury escape and I make no apologies for not building it true to American styles. That said, I did buy a 1933 pedestal tub and had it refinished. The front vestibule addition took a lot of research. I needed a place to come in from the weather on the front of the house as there is no garage attached. I had to look at colonials in the northeast to find vestibules that wouldn't muck up the look. I think it worked with a real stone exterior. We couldn't replicate the wood siding from 1939. We tried all types and ended up using lapped cedar siding on the addition on the side and back. Anything left from my renovation was given to the architectural salvage warehouse, where they didn't pay me, but gave me credit ---which we used to find trim pieces and parts, here and there. Sorry to post such a long explanation, but I think it's a reality check on what goes into renovating an older home. It's a conundrum for an owner--how much to put into the house....See MoreRenovating a 1890s Queen Ann style New Orleans home
Comments (59)Welcome to the forum. I've renovated in the Lower Garden District and our first home was behind Fat Harrys. Sadly, we've left NOLA. But, renovating there is an adventure. Don't forget that you will need to tip the inspector when he does you the courtesy of inspecting the installation of those new on-demand hot water heaters. $20.00 should do it. Number one priority is to take care of any water issues, roof, gutters, drains and foundations. Formosan's are the enemy. Second priority is the electrical. Everything else can wait unless someone is making their debut. Looks like that could be a while. In which case, you can just do a New Orleans paint job:) (You will never understand that unless you have lived in New Orleans.) Plenty of good spots for that Rex memorabilia, too. Can't wait to see what you do to the old girl. Just don't be in too big a hurry to get it all done for the Junior League Tour of Homes. They can wait. If you rush, you make mistakes. Best of luck to you. These are labors of love that should keep you busy for this lifetime and into the next. Boy, this makes me home sick....See MoreKswl
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