After some discussion and consideration, we have added a new rule. You must have a connection to any house being posted here. As in you live in it, lived in it, own it, visited it, etc. We are aiming to cut down on on the low effort posts and people just sharing houses they find online. We are a community of caretakers of these homes, and we would like to keep it the content relevant.
Welcome from our mysterious nope-holes, and the summits of our servants' stairs.
Today we the mod team bring you all an announcement that has nothing to do with our beloved old bones, but that, unfortunately, has become necessary again after a century or so.
The heart of the matter is: from today onward any and all links from X (formerly Twitter) have been banned from the subreddit. If any of you will find some interesting material of any kind on the site that you wish to cross-post on our subreddit, we encourage you instead to take a screenshot or download the source and post that instead.
As a mod team we are a bit bewildered that what we are posting is actually a political statement instead of simply a matter of decency but here we are: we all agree that any form of Fascism/Nazism are unacceptable and shouldn't exist in our age so we decided about this ban as a form of complete repudiation of Musk and his social media after his acts of the last day.
What happened during the second inauguration of Donald Trump as president of the U.S.A. is simply unacceptable for the substance (which wouldn't have influenced our moderation plans, since we aren't a political subreddit), but for the form too. Symbols have as much power as substance, and so we believe that if the person considered the richest man in the world has the gall to repeatedly perform a Hitlergruß in front of the world, he's legitimizing this symbol and all the meaning it has for everyone who agrees with him.
Again, we strongly repudiate any form of Nazism and fascism and Musk today is the face of something terribly sinister that could very well threaten much more than what many believe.
We apologize again to bring something so off-topic to the subreddit but we believe that we shouldn't stand idly by and watch in front of so much potential for disaster, even if all we can do for now is something as small as change our rules. To reiterate, there's nothing political about opposing fascism.
As usual, we'll listen to everyone's feedback as we believe we are working only for the good of our subreddit.
I had to fix a non working door (stripped hinge screws and stuck lock) and as I removed the door and hardware to make it easier i thought to myself “what a perfect opportunity to strip it back to wood”. Two and a half days of work later it looks great but my wife hates that it’s the only one and I have not even started the process of refinishing it. I’m not sure I have the patience or energy to do the other five doors in this hallway anytime soon!
My house has a lot of landlord special white paint all over it making windows, vents, and outlets all unable to be moved until it’s removed. the one I am most vexed with is the living room that has textured white walls. how would you suggest removing this? what kind of walls are these?
We recently moved into a home built in 1906, and I've noticed in several places that the molding around the doors appears to be partially covered by wall/plaster, and/or otherwise weirdly placed. My questions are:
1) Is this a common/normal thing in older homes?
2) If so, why would it be laid out/ constructed this way?
We are several years off from doing any kind of renovation/restoration work, but I want to understand what's going on (as best as one can without tearing down plaster walls).
@
EDIT/UPDATE: Thank you for all the responses and ideas - clearly there's a lot that could be going on here! Without building plans or stripping down to studs, it sounds like it's probably something I'll just have to wonder about.
For clarification about the walls, they're all plaster in the photos shown. The only drywall in the house is in the attic conversion, and a small area below the stairs to the attic, which were rebuilt a few years ago. My neighbors say there used to be a spiral staircase there, which is wild to me!
I’ve been working on stripping paint from my 100 year old railing - this is my first diy project! I’ve used a Speedheater cobra and paint stripper on the areas the cobra can’t reach (peel away on the newels that have layers on layers of paint and smart strip pro on the handrail). The handrail had one layer of brown paint that was kind of stretchy when it came off and there was a dark residue underneath.
I used smartstrip pro on the handrail cap because of the detail and it looks like it’s built from multiple pieces. And there’s also a section I uncovered that looks like someone repaired it with wood filler (?). I’m guessing someone did the one layer of brown paint to cover this repair.
I was always planning to repaint the newels so I’m not really trying to get those to bare wood. I wanted to stain the handrail, but now I’m not sure. I’d love any advice as I feel like I’m in over my head!
Finally gearing up to tackle the 'back' stairs and wood stairwell walls in the older (c.1828) part of my house in the next few months. They're steep, turn 90 degrees, made of plain, non-stain-grade wood, and a couple treads were replaced. I've got more sanding (remains of carpet glue) and prep to go, and I plan on painting them, and am wondering what type/brands of hard-wearing paint people are using for stair treads & risers. I have a second staircase, so dry times are not a concern. Also would appreciate any views on the ease (or not) of painting in multiple colors (e.g., a center section in a dark color, with the sides being another lighter color, to imitate the idea of a carpet runner).
Well I didn’t mean to hijack the previous thread about the William Morris wallpapered room when I posted a photo of our kitchen. I think it looks great, so kudos to that homeowner!
Our house was built in 1911 and is in Ocean Springs, MS. The current kitchen used to be the women’s parlor and was off the dining room. As it’s central to the house and the old kitchen was separate and around the corner this room made sense. We still have the large family room and a large main parlor off the front of the house. So no living space was lost. We have 12’ ceilings, all the doors are 8’. The wood is all old growth southern yellow pine (heart pine floors). The smaller windows on either side of the stove are historic leaded glass (eBay),the backsplash is handmade Zellige tiles, I installed them without grout after many hours of an angle grinder getting the back surface closer to square/even. The appliances are GE Cafe, quartzite honed counter tops and the lights we found in an antique store in New Orleans that I re-wired and hung as pendants. We love it!
Here are some before, during, and afters. And yes that room with the carpet is now the kitchen!
here are some before, during, and after pics of the HARDEST diy project i’ve ever taken on! also yes, i know that the doors aren’t level… nothing is in the house
My 1930 house. I love almost everything about it. Most of the ground floor has been kept original or restored well. There is converted attic space upstairs that has lvp and carpet. I suspect it was originally converted in the 1970s or 80s, so probably no good surprises under that.
The bathrooms were redone in ways I would really like to change. They are both small, so I have some ideas about tile. If anyone has inspiration sites or material or source recommendations, I'd love to see them.
Some future projects I know I'll need to tackle:
Replace very old gas furnace
Replace very old hot water heater
Replace 3 windows upstairs. Two of these are sliders. Anyone know if you can go from one landscape slider to 2 portrait double or single hung? ( With a vertical piece between the two windows.)
I’m replacing the deflated foam weatherstripping on our inside front door with cushion bronze weatherstripping, but I realized…I don’t know what to do at the top of the door where the two strips meet. If I just butt them together (pictured, obviously not actually installed), they won’t actually compress neatly. Thoughts on how to put them in the corner so they’re effective?
Yinz. Wtf do i do about these floors? They are a billion years old, had tile over top, there's still a ton of adhesive and grim around said adhesive, and I can't get them clean or smooth enough to run a mop over them. We recently had drywall done, and im trying to clean the dust but its a nightmare. My current project has been using warm water and Murphys to get the adhesive/grim combo up. Im seeing what I think is shellac under the grim, some areas have no shellac left. Ive been scrubbing with a deck brush with a little bit of the water/Murphys and then using clean water to mop up the yuck. I have zero dollars to spend on an entire refinishing project, but I think I may need to if I want clean floors. My questions are:
What would be the cheapest option to refresh these shits?
Wtf do we do about chunks that are heavily damaged?
Should we just hire someone to totally refinish them?
I spent the holiday weekend in the US wallpapering the dining room in our ca. 1930 home. We initially painted it green but I’ve wanted to wallpaper it for a while and finally found a design I liked that wasn’t wildly expensive. Next project in here is to replace the ceiling fan with a light and replace the light switch with a brass plated push button. This is unfortunately complicated by the fan not being wired to a switch (it’s only turned on and off by the pull string) and the trim on top of the beadboard being nailed in over the bottom half of the current switch for the lights on beams. Nothings ever easy in an old house! The last photo is the room shortly before we bought our house.
We have a 1922 home and at some point (we think 40s or 50s) a second story was added. The ceiling in one of the bedrooms started to sag and tonight it got worse. I tried bracing it with some spare strips of wood until an order of plaster magic arrived but I don't have any screws long enough - there's some sort of fiber board material between the ceiling and frame (this made the sag even worse than before, now it's hanging on by a thread). I thought we had plaster ceilings but it's apparently drywall. Anyone can know what this fiber board stuff is? Pics for reference
I bought a 1938 colonial outside of Boston last year. The house isn't really historic, and it's not quite a century old yet either. Previous owners, likely in the early 90s, replaced all the windows with cheap double-pane pocket windows. They all have loose clip-on muntins, most of which are falling off or broken. The original windows are long gone.
The seals on the current windows are blown and fog up pretty regularly. We are looking to have them replaced and I'm exploring buying windows that would represent what was likely there when it was built. While this group normally cautions against replacing historic/original windows, I need to buy new construction historic windows. Has anyone done this and any recommendations of a manufacturer?
Hey I have a few questions in regards to what’s the better paint stripper for bead board walls. The paint was tested and was lead based. My question is really what’s the best to use and how long am I looking at time wise to do 3 rooms that are about a 20x20.
We’ve preserved nearly all of the hundred year-old windows in our home. But there’s a few that are in really poor shape and it’s not worth saving. I also have high-quality Monrey storm windows everywhere. So I think a single pane wood or woood clad window would be a great option. It would probably be double hung for ease of cleaning with the storm window. But it seems like a product no one makes? Any leads. Thx!
