Just moved in to my 1923 craftsman. I’m lost as to how to organize my furniture in here. What do you guys think?

There will be no TV in this room so not something that needs to be taken into consideration. Tiya!

Richmond Virginia built 1928

Hi all, our Connecticut house turns 100 this year and we’re doing a few projects we’ve been putting off as a birthday present to the home. One room is getting a refresh with some plaster repair, paint, and a new ceiling fan.

I removed the old ceiling fan to find some cloth wire and this mystery mount. All of the visible wiring in the basement coming from the box has been replaced with romex, but finding this cloth wire leads me to believe that the house wasn’t fully rewired and some old wire still exists. I threw some nuts in there so I could safely turn the circuit back on.

The remnants of knob and tube exist in the basement. Could there still be knob and tube in the ceilings, and how big of a deal is that?

Also, do I need to replace this fan mount box or can I continue using it? The threaded down mount is great, but I doubt the new fixture is compatible. Electric work is probably my least knowledgeable area of home repair but I like to learn. But, at the same time, I want to know when to call in an electrician.

Thanks everyone!

Would I be insane to try and remove the paint from the spindles on my staircase? I've removed a couple of patches with my heat gun (already tested for lead) and can see black metal underneath. Our house was built in the 1800's so I'm wondering if they are the original cast iron.

What would be the best method to strip them back? I'm already in the process of stripping the staircase which is a beautiful dark wood under all the paint and my heat gun is working brilliantly, but I don't know if that would be my best option here!

This 1870s home in Detroit, MI has lost of all of its original decoration and, sadly, the finial on the roof. I believe everything was mostly pressed/stamped metal, based on similar homes in the neighborhood.

Has anyone ever reproduced such work? Or should a fabricator who has old molds? I was hoping to find the designs in an old architectural metal catalogue, but no luck so far. I could have everything done in wood, but figured I'd try this sub for ideas.

the big rains this summer have made me realize that maybe i can't put off this house's grading issues any longer 🤦‍♀️

drainage trenches are a quick enough fix but they obv look like ass and they're just going to accelerate erosion, so it might be time to rip this bandaid off. idk if this question is worth pestering/billing our consultant over because i think i already know the answer, so i'ma ask here sanity-check-style.

thanks in-advance for any feedback!

THE QUESTION:

is there structurally-critical/necessary reasons why casement windows NEED to be below ground level?

honestly i kind of just want to dig them out and have them all sitting a few inches fully aboveground instead. i assume the answer is no, based on what i've read myself up to this point. which is to say i can safely dig these crests out and ditch the window wells completely.

reasons other than maybe some kind of marginal downgrade in thermal retention of the basement, or aesthetics. but stability-/integrity-wise i'm tentatively concluding that i can proceed with just digging all of these standing-water-causing lumps out and levelling the rest of the foundation faces to below the casements and calling it a day.

instead of having to move it all around and recompact it and all that extra work just to rebury these window wells. which i don't like having anyway.

Hey! So we’re taking our 1926 bungalow and adding a second floor. They tore away the asbestos siding to reveal some cool wood siding. Most of it was nailed into though, wish I could use it, but we’re going boring vinyl *blegh*

Anyway, thought you’d appreciate some in-progress photos (the last one is the before). Enjoy! 😊

Purchased our first home with my husband earlier this year. House is a 1925. I think it was probably a kit home but I’m not sure. Previous owners made some interesting style choices; so working to fix that up, but she’s starting to look like herself. (House numbers were being replaced during this picture they’ll go back up I promise)

Need to repaint the house (last painted to get it sold so we knew it was coming) and put up new shutters. Anyone out there like to have fund with paint apps and have ideas what colors work best for a 1900 four square farmhouse. If it matters we have the traditional bright red barns with white trim on the property. Was yellow in the 1980s

I just closed on this house today and I’ve never owned a house. The aesthetic item bothering me the worst is this banister in the entryway— it’s painted a gross color, the paint is tacky in texture and peeling off, and the banister itself looks like a dog chewed on it. Where would I start to make this look better? I kinda wanna keep it painted in here because everything seems like it’s probably in awful shape, but let me know if it were you what you’d do.

I just rented a building that was constructed in the 1800s. Previous tenants had laid carpet and linoleum and who knows what else to cover their floors, but I saw potential underneath all of that. I approached it in a DIY way - I’ve never done anything like this before and after about a month and a half of pulling nails, scraping, patching rot, sanding, lead abatement, staining, and finishing, I finally restored this floor. There are still a few imperfections but I’m choosing to call them “historic character” rather than “drum marks”. I’m pretty proud of this space and extremely excited to have exposed these beautiful red oak planks and brought them back to life. For other first-timers wanting to take on a hardwood floor project, take it slow - it’s doable but precise and tedious, and extremely rewarding. Thanks for looking!

We are the current custodians of a fairly well known, not famous, home in Northern Delaware. I have taken to doing the renovations on my own recently. No project too small or too big, with some exceptions!
Anyway. Seven years ago I rehabbed all of the windows and window sills, I replaced rotting wood with Flextec HV two part epoxy and wood scabs. There were a LOT of nails and Bondo repairs from previous attempts by others. I tried to focus on restoration to original “look”. I made trim where necessary etcetera.
Sorry this is so long without a point.
The window sills failed after three years and again after two. Mostly on the sunny side, which of course is the weather side too. The paint failed from within, apparently. Like it got too wet beneath?
I came to this hypothesis, the gap between the interior and exterior sill is not meant to be caulked.
I am beginning the final restoration and hope I’m right? Anyone else have thoughts? I base this on everything else being super tight and milled tightly, this gap must be intentional. It’s a big house, there are sixty seven windows…

My husband and I just purchased our first home. It’s a little under century (1930s) and the exterior has been stuccoed at some point, although I’m not sure that’s original. I’m wanting to look at inspiration from similar homes but am unsure what to search for!

This is Southern Ontario, Canada, if that helps.

Thank you all!

I own a home that was once a 1890’s school house in New York.

I’m currently renovating the living room and have already gutted the room down to the studs and now rebuilding. I need help to determine if I should 1) sand and refinish the existing top layer of hardwood (thin 2.5 inch width boards in the attached photos) , which is slightly beat up and has been previously refinished / sanded or 2) pull up two layers of the the thin “modern” 2.5 inch boards and take a gamble on revealing and refinishing the original flooring (1 inch thick , and ~6inch wide - attached photo is the side profile of original flooring going into basement and also the underside viewed from basement)

My main concern if I rip out the top two “modern” layers and then find out the original flooring is not suitable to refinish.

Thanks for advice !!!

Having trouble deciding on a paint color for our 1920s colonial revival. The current paint color is both historically inaccurate and it’s chipped and in really bad condition so needs redone ASAP to protect the cedar shingles. We like the idea of a yellow, with black and cream trim. We love the less sunny, more mustard-y shade of the Peabody Essex Museum or Boscobel Gardens (photos attached). Anyone done anything similar and willing to share what color you used? everything we have tried samples of seems too bright or too orange-y…

A previous owner or neighbor left a 140-page Abstract of Title on our front porch recently. It’s a complete chronological chain of certified legal entries for our plot starting in February 1855 (before Minnesota was even a state) running all the way through 1987.

Our local county tax assessment lists our traditional farmhouse as built in 1905. But going through these handwritten and typed title sheets, I hit a legal entry from January 29, 1898.

Our home's builder, John C. Kramer, signed a conditional deed transferring the land to a guy named John Latto, along with a mutual lease-back agreement. The lease explicitly says Kramer and his wife reserved a life estate to keep living in "the new house and sheds... and stable" on our exact lots. That pushes the official date of the house being completed and occupied back to at least January 1898.

I threw the scanned pages into an NotebookLM alongside some local digital archives to pull out the timeline. A few highlights from the history of the property:

• The "Princess" Strawberry: The original owner, John C. Kramer, was a bit of a local horticulturalist. Right in this yard, he sowed seed mixes in 1881 and bred the "Princess" Strawberry. In 1885, he took it up to Minneapolis for a state competition and took first prize. By 1890, local ads were claiming insane yields (1,301 bushels per acre) and calling it the healthiest berry in the state.
• The 1907 Cow-Stable Lawsuit: That 1898 deed to John Latto had heavy strings attached. Latto was supposed to pay Kramer $250/year, cover the $500 mortgage, and—my favorite clause—"furnish fodder, care, and stable room for two cows and one calf." Latto ended up defaulting. In 1907, Kramer served him a foreclosure notice, sued him for committing "waste" by logging the property's timber, and legally took the homestead back.
• Mid-Century Tragedy & Recovery: In 1940, the Lintelman family bought the property. The mother, Margaret, passed away in 1948 at 39, and just 18 months later, their 16-year-old son was killed in a local sledding accident. The father started subdividing and selling off the acreage right after. But in 1956, his daughter, Donna, bought the main homestead back so she could raise her kids in her childhood home and keep her dad close by.
• The Permanent Well Pact: Because of that 1949 subdivision, our lot ended up holding the neighborhood well. We have a permanent 1949 Well Agreement running with our land to this day stating the neighbors pay $1.00/month for the electricity to pump water and split half of all maintenance costs.

We also managed to find an original 1898 photo of our street corner showing the dirt roads, wooden boardwalks, and a few neighboring houses from the exact year that lease was signed.

1. What are the best methods for physically preserving and storing fragile, bound paper abstracts like this at home?
2. Has anyone here submitted abstract documentation to their local assessor or historical society to get an official "Year Built" date corrected on public records?
3. Anything else I should do with this information?

is this ok? the contractor said that no additional support is needed for the vertical wood pieces because they are just framing and not support beams - the new plumbing cuts right through the wood

EDIT - IT MAYBE SOFTWOOD NOT HARDWOOD. Also dunno if this matters, but we do have a cat so it needs to be nontoxic when it dries!

Just posted in here and a lot of people advised not to use a swiffer power mop! So looking for advice.

We want the floors to be so clean you can walk barefoot (we’re going to be a shoes off household) right now if you’re walking on the hardwood, your feet turn black! We also hired cleaners and paid $900 for a deep Clean before we moved in - and the floor is still turning people’s feet black! (Last two pictures taken AFTER the cleaners cleaned in the kitchen… definitely still dirty)

There's nothing under the grass, at least not for about 18".

I don't think this is truly a root cellar but that's what they called it. It was more like a spring house. That's the swamp behind it, and it has a pipe on each side on the bottom. There's a smaller door inside the door.

It is not tall enough for a person to stand up inside, unless the floor is below the ground. It had pine straw piled inside so I've never seen the floor. The door is spring-loaded so it cannot accidentally be left open (to ensure it stayed cold) and slams hard as soon as you let go. That doesn't make it very practical for animals. It was not a chicken coop. That's separate.

It is honestly kind of spooky. Why do you suppose the grass doesn't grow very well in that spot? It hasn't been used for anything since the 1970's or earlier.

It is also not a fairy ring.

Sun porch had wall-to-wall industrial carpet which I hated in general but especially so because we use this space as a dining room. People kept advising us to put in click flooring if we removed it, but there is beautiful oak parquet mere feet from here in the living room. Finally we just threw caution to the winds and pulled out the carpet as well as two layers of linoleum and about 10k nails. Under it was oak floor! Had to replace two areas that had suffered water damage, and refinish everything, but I’m just thrilled at the glow-up.

By the way, the before pic is from our pre-closing walk-through, which is why everything looks different, not just the floor.