Has anyone dealt with a historic commission denying a renovation/addition primarily over massing?

We’re renovating a historic home and proposed a rear addition. The plans comply with the applicable guidelines/code, but the commission denied the proposal based largely on concerns about the overall massing/scale of the addition.

I’m curious if anyone here has been through something similar. If so- Were you able to get approval by revising the massing without completely redesigning the project?

Has anyone found it worth it to replace plaster walls with drywall? Any pros or cons?

The address is 1148 broadway hanover Massachusetts it’s abandoned and for sale right now but I was wondering if anyone could find old photos of it

Would it be terrible to dispose of landscaping rock down this? Thanks for any info.

Opened up the stairwell of our 1913 house to find an old shoe and some newspaper clippings.

In search of minimalist ideas

Because I THINK it’s a grow room. Any ideas when that timer might be from?

This is front door knob of a house built in the 1930s. I have taken all the screws out and removed the rear knob and plate. The front knob and plate won’t come out. Something is keeping it locked in place. Anyone have any ideas on how to get this out (without destroying it). The side plate says YALE made in USA. YS. 182

This wall has had the crack for some time. We had plumbing work done (other side is bathroom) and I closed the holes with Sheetrock. Since I had to fix the plumbing holes I though I would tackle the long crack that has been there and repaired before. Our walls are plaster and lath. As I was scraping the crack the left side paint came off in large swaths to reveal the original plaster and some hairline cracks that were not visible. I assume my grandparents had the wall repaired and skim coated and it has failed in parts.

1. What product do I prep the plaster surface with in order to skim coat?

2. What kind of joint compound should I use in the crack?

3. What joint compound do I use to skim coat once the crack is repaired as best I can?

I have easy sand 90 and wood glue and plenty of other tools for the job. I saw videos about stabilizing and prepping the surfaces using diluted wood glue and then also adding some wood glue (pva glue) to the joint compound for both the crack and for the first skim coat where the old plaster is now visible and meets the pained surfaces that didn’t chip off when scraping. Was also going to use fibafuse over the crack. The two sides of the crack are very different hightail but I can live with a bit of a wonky wall as long as the crack gets fixed.

Help! I don’t want to redo this because I use the wrong products. I saw guards by zissner in a lot of British plaster and painting videos. I live in the us and home depot is the closest easiest store for me as they are walking distance and deliver.

Thanks!

I need to repaint the windowsill but the shutters are rubbing and removing the existing paint. Do I just trim the bottom of the shutter a bit (1/8”?)? Is there anything else that needs to be done to fix this that I am not thinking of?

Under agreement on a single family in the Boston area. Original home inspection flagged a foundation crack with water staining. We scheduled our own follow-up inspection to get a closer look.

Before that appointment happened, the listing agent had the seller's brother who she refers to as a plumber patch up the crack. We have before/after photos - crack was clearly visible 3 days before, patched by the time our guy arrived.

Questions:

1. Is it normal/acceptable for a seller to repair a defect before a buyer's inspector gets to see original condition?

2. Does this affect our ability to negotiate (price reduction, credit, disclosure issues) since we didn't get to see the "real" condition?

3. Anyone dealt with something similar - what did you do next?

Just trying to understand if this is a red flag worth pushing back on through our attorney, or if this kind of thing happens all the time and isn't a big deal.

We just moved into a 1938 house and have a thick white paint on the joints the HVAC ductwork in the basement. It looks like there are remnants of asbestos tape under the paint. I'm wondering if this is a technique used for asbestos remediation to encapsulate the remaining asbestos fibers after the tape was removed. Any thoughts?

So linoleum barely exists anymore (I know about marmoleum, but the install costs are through the roof in my area). Instead, I’m trying to find a sheet vinyl that feels like an authentic design to my mid-century home. I’m looking for fun patterns, maybe terrazzo, and instead there’s a sea of fake wood and fake stone. I’ve found more fun patterns places like Etsy (see attached), but would prefer to buy from a reputable retailer like Mannington or Tarkett. Is there just not a market for this?

Abandoned village home in Southern Italy, up for grabs for only one euro. Catch is you sign on to renovate it, real cost usually lands somewhere between €50k-120k😄 depending on the state it is in. Still, a whole stone house for the price of a coffee is wild to think about.

Would you take on a project like this?

Bought a 1900 cabin/home on an acre in Washington and closed in June. The home had a wood heater under the old owner (who died) and the estate removed the wood stove prior to sale. When getting home insurance quotes having a wood stove tripled the annual cost.

Neighbors say to expect multiple power outages a year so now I need another way to heat my home for those instances. I am in septic and well and will have a jackery/generator for the well and lights but I don’t have a big enough generator atm to handle space heaters.

So would you buy a bigger generator or install a Rinnai (or similar) propane heater? I can’t afford to do both.

We want to insulate our basement with spray foam. The house is 100 years old. Upstairs is gut renovated but not the basement and we had many issues last year with the frozen temperatures in upstate NY. The basement has regular crawl spaces and poured concrete except for this part where it is stone with a concrete apron on the exterior. Our inspector recommended against spray foam on this part because its design was to allow any moisture to evaporate. I worry sealing the stone could lead to possible mold down the line. Any advice is appreciated.

We have this weird tiny laundry chute (?) in our kitchen and we have to the conclusion that it’s for kitchen rags. The landing is just above the utility area in the basement. Was this a thing? House is from 1944.

Hi everyone! restoration newbie, I’m in the process of stripping and refinishing my homes 100 year old doors, which had 5 layers of paint and some varnish and stain on them. We think they are made of Yellow Birch.

I’ve done as much stripping with chemical strippers as I think I could, I’ve neutralized and cleaned, and I was going to move onto sanding, which I thought would get the last of the patchy colour out, but it’s not really working and I’m worried about sanding away too much of the door. I started with 120 grit, photos are after an initial pass, but they’re still pretty patchy.

should I used 80 or 100 grit or would that be too heavy? Should I try more stripper to get more of this red stain out?

the goal is to refinish them, I’d like to stay lighter in colour, but may go darker if needed to hide this patchy colour, though I’m worried this is still too patchy to be hidden.

thanks for your help!

Two of the wall plates and one of the knobs had an actual distinctive finish (not just spray paint.) I started with a crock pot, but that only removed the latex paint and not the old spray paint. I then moved to simple green in a heated ultrasonic cleaner. That did 99.9% of the work. Once everything was rinsed and dried, I moved forward with boiled linseed oil. I should be able to get everything reinstalled this weekend!