Tabla de contenidos para November/December 2022 en Old House Journal

A quick timeline: OHJ started in “brownstone Brooklyn,” in 1973, its debut coinciding with that era’s Back to the City movement. The early OHJ was a 12-page, typewritten, DIY newsletter, punched with three holes in order to be archived in a three-ring binder. Coverage eventually expanded beyond row houses and Victorians to old houses built 1690–1940 (now 1970), in all parts of the country. The first color cover—and first paid advertising—came in 1986, sparking a “bring back the holes” wail from long-time subscribers. Several iterations followed, then Active Interest Media became this magazine’s owner in 2007. I’m still here! The magazines Old-House Journal and Old-House Interiors (founded in 1995) merged as OHJ, in 2013. We’ve got special things planned for our 50th year. First up, by reader demand, is the…

1. HERALDIC PLATE The Gothic Revival pull plate in solid brass comes from an early-20th-century pattern in a bronze finish. Featuring pointed ogee arches, it measures 18" tall x 3 ¼" wide with a 2 ½" projection. $139 each. The Kings Bay, (800) 910-3497, thekingsbay.com 2. LIGHT THE DRAWBRIDGE The Wexham porch light is loaded with intricate brass castings including arches, crosses, and scrolls. Available in three finishes including unlacquered brass, it measures 19" high x 43/8" wide x 12" deep. With butterscotch or white art glass: $875. Vintage Hardware & Lighting, (360) 379-9030, vintagehardware.com 3. FOIL AND CUSP Quatrefoils may be the defining motif of the Gothic Revival. The Quatrefoil mirror with white waxstone inlay is framed in antique gold and measures 30" x 30". Made by Maitland–Smith. $806.51.…

Pale furniture, simple textiles, panel moulding on the walls, and the ornate wall mirror are hallmarks of revived Gustavian style. Wisteria’s Gustavian Dining Chair is made of distressed wood painted white, pale grey, or black, and comes with a natural linen cushion. The handmade country-style chair is 37" high. It’s $525 plus an import handling fee of $30. wisteria.com Flat-woven carpets, used throughout the 19th century, are timeless. This is Blue Creek, #219, from Woodard & Greenstein, who offer 75 historical designs. Cotton rugs are hand-loomed and-dyed; $23 per sq.ft. woodardweave.com Larsson’s candid paintings of the family home Lilla Hyttnäs, in Sundborn, brought Swedish Arts & Crafts style to the world. A Scandinavian tiled masonry stove is a rarity here. But Woodstock Soapstone Company makes the Fireview, marrying natural…

You’ve seen the salvaged terra cotta pieces that come from demolished buildings. But how to repurpose them so you can enjoy their beauty and craftsmanship? Most are too large and heavy to hang, so they end up as slowly spalling garden ornaments. So Architectural Artifacts of St. Louis and Architectural Antiques in Minneapolis have come up with a clever solution: slice down the awkward pieces into usable sizes. This terra cotta was salvaged from a 1936 school building designed by George Grant Elmslie, in Hammond, Indiana. The Cost Already-finished pieces run $250 to $I, 250, usually dependent on the size. the process 1. CUTTING Each piece of terra cotta is carefully cut down with a circular saw, using a diamond blade. The cut leaves the ornamental façade of the piece…

OLD HOUSE JOURNAL 50th YEAR READER FAVORITE THE BIG REVEAL 2022 Growing up in the 1960s, my afternoons and summer vacations were spent working in a small bookstore run by an elderly Russian lady named Anna Blom, who paid me in “Wizard of Oz” books. Those stories of fantasy left a lasting impression. When it was time to buy my forever home, I found a place that gave my imagination free reign: a rather plain house on Seattle’s Queen Anne Hill. • Built in 1906, the house was a simple, gabled Victorian. Inside, details including fir woodwork and oak floors showed a transition toward Arts & Crafts. Time had taken a toll; by 1986, it had been covered decades earlier with white vinyl siding outlined in black trim. Hardwood floors…

A DYNAMIC DUO OHJ’s West Coast editor, Dr. Brian Coleman, has been in our court since 1996. A prolific scout and writer, he has also written 23 design books…this in addition to his primary career as a practicing psychiatrist. Over the years he’s worked with photographers who share Brian’s love of interior design and his careful attention to detail. (Perfectionism in this case being a good thing.) Perhaps his longest association has been with William Wright, who like Brian resides in Seattle. We’re featuring Brian’s own exuberant Victorian house in this issue, as we enter our 50th year. Bill Wright took the photos. We’re so grateful to them both. Thank you, too, to Doug Keister, Dan Mayers, Ed Addeo, Erik Kvalsvik, and John Neitzel, all Coleman collaborators whose work we’ve…

Culled from readers and editors over the years, here are 10 nuggets to help you renovate and decorate without spending a fortune. Taken together, they suggest both a timeline (plan ahead!) and an approach (listen to the house). Take your time. Seek advice from other renovators, reliable contractors, and a designer who can help you avoid pitfalls.n Old houses need renovation and system upgrades, which aren’t cheap. Still, an old house may offer other advantages. The quality of materials—hardwood, three-coat plaster, doublehung windows, wood wainscoting—means that elements last and are meant to be repaired, not replaced. An unfitted kitchen with multiple counter surfaces and a linoleum floor is more budget-friendly than most. Comfortably imperfect, layered with history, old houses take well to eclectic mixing. No. 2 SAVE in the kitchen Best…

Even a mansion can present with a badly remodeled kitchen. The George C. Thomas House is a historic Victorian home in Philadelphia’s Rittenhouse Square. “Its kitchen and master bathroom were at first our prime focus,” says architect Spence Kass. The floor plan was redesigned for the kitchen. Two separate rooms and a pantry became the main kitchen, made airy with the addition of a raised ceiling. It includes a breakfast room, and opens to a family room/conservatory with a wall of double-glazed French doors. Historical integrity is balanced with modern convenience. New cabinets and white subway tiles (with traditional grey grout), along with high-end appliances, join Victorian details and 19th-century antiques. The big copper teakettle was once signage for a tea shop. A trammel (for holding pots over an open…

1. EMBRACE THE MASK Lightweight and disposable, the N100 offers NIOSH’s highest-rated filtration efficiency in a disposable respirator. It’s equipped with a proprietary Cool Flow valve and seals well to the face. $12.81 each. 3M, (888) 364-3577, 3M.com 2. BREATHE FREE Green Odorless Mineral Spirits makes short work of oil-based cleanup and can be used to thin oil-based paint, stain, and varnish as well as clean brushes and splatters. It’s 65 percent lower in fumes and VOCs than standard mineral spirits. Gallon size: $18.98. Jasco, (844) 969-1377, jasco-help.com 3. SAFE, EFFICIENT Separate paint and varnish from doors, windows, trim & more, quickly and safely, with the Speedheater Cobra infrared paint stripper. Weighing only 22 ounces, it penetrates hard-to-reach curves and details and can be used indoors or out. $499. Eco-Strip,…

WRONG WAY SIMPLE DOWELING Making tight joints in new construction can be challenging. Sometimes clamping is not possible or practical when assembling rafters or large door and window jambs. The quickest method of fastening requires simply boring through all of the layers (the mortise and then tenon) and inserting a wood dowel. This method usually leaves some play in the joint, which will increase significantly as the wood shrinks. RIGHT WAY A PEGGED TENON Here, a mortise-and-tenon joint is secured with a dowel through slightly misaligned holes. In essence, you bore a hole through both walls of the mortise, then bore a separate hole through the tenon, closer to the shoulder of the tenon. When you assemble the joint and drive a stout peg through the offset holes, the peg…

People ask what inspired me to create such an unusual house: Is it meant to conjure a haunted house, a dream, Hansel and Gretel? The truth is, Cardiff Castle started it all. This storybook place in Wales goes back to medieval times but was restored, in the High Victorian 1870s, by the 3rd Marquess of Bute—who shares my birth date. We have a psychic connection! —b.d.c. Cardiff Castle, located in historic Cardiff, Wales, is one of the most elaborate and whimsical buildings of the Victorian age. It is the creation of John Patrick Crichton–Stuart, the wealthy 3rd Marquess of Bute, who had the guidance of the eccentric architect William Burges. The castle was built on the site of a Roman keep and fortress that dates back 2,000 years. The castle…

Metal beds became popular both for their stylish heft and because they presented fewer hiding places for vermin, bugs, and germs. Proportioned now for today’s bedding sizes, metal bedsteads from Charles P. Rogers are substantial, made much as they were a hundred years ago; the company was founded in 1855. Twenty styles of metal beds range from the authentic, Victorian-era Boston Bed in iron and brass to the contemporary Milan bed. Shown: The Hyde Park all-brass high-foot bed in the Antique Brass finish, a 19th-century English design classic. See also wood beds and mattresses, options, and prices at the website. (800) 582-6229, charlesprogers.com…

Even the bathrooms are perfection in this turn-of-the-century summer house reimagined and expanded by architect John B. Murray. His work always combines classical elegance with his respect for the vernacular. This seaside home is at the eastern end of Long Island in New York. The renovation was extensive, as the interior had been stripped of character. Murray’s design for the primary bathroom is spare, white, and serene. Yet the room remains country-comfortable, owing to the light-filled window bay, softening details, and stained oak flooring. From the built-ins to the floating tub in the bay, this feels like a furnished room. Hotel-worthy amenities include double lavatories, a seated vanity, and separate bathtub and shower areas. The enameled-cast iron Kohler tub is the focal point. A shower with a glass door tucks…

When we first visited the house, four years ago, we noticed signs of damage to the front door. Surrounded by stone quoins, the door has a fixed, leadedglass window that depicts a hand-painted crest of the family who built it, in the mid-1920s. The door is faced in oak on the exterior with massive decorative strap hinges and coordinating entry hardware. Inside, the door is paneled in walnut. The bottom rail was suspect. Even from a distance, you could see that the door had previously been repaired, and not well. The extent of the damage was not immediately obvious, though. We moved in and put the repair on our to-do list. Other projects took precedence (including a flood in the basement that necessitated an extensive drainage overhaul), so we didn’t…

Old houses were built for the particular climate: high ceilings and breezeways in the South, compact with a central masonry core in the North. Wood shutters and porches mitigate infiltration and solar gain. Siting was probably purposeful, as was the planting of evergreen and deciduous trees for best advantage. An old house can be made much more efficient at conserving energy while remaining safe and livable. THE ENVELOPE Attention to the building envelope (roof, walls, windows) is as important as attention to upgrading the HVAC system. Roof or attic insulation is easy and a cost efficient upgrade. Next, blocking infiltration with caulk and weather stripping, while tedious, is often the single most cost-effective solution in leaky old houses. The work is often do-it-yourself. The best weather stripping (doors and windows) is…

“Getting up in the morning, I’d rush downstairs before work—and step into a foot or so of icy-cold Jamaica Bay water,” says Patrick Clark, who rescued this 1880s shingled cottage set close to the shore. “I hadn’t seen the water myself until after I bought the house and lived here.” His vernacular house, surrounded by wild sea grasses, sits in the lowest elevation in Rockaway, which is the far-flung, seaside corner of Queens, a borough of New York City. Every month, with the new moon, high tide would bring bay water into the house; a few hours later, it drained back out. “It was pretty obvious I had to raise the house,” Patrick says, “but I had no idea how to make that happen.” Clark, a renowned stained-glass conservator and…

SUCCESS: LEVITT HOME Related Resources MID-CENTURY WALLPAPER Bradbury & Bradbury bradbury.com Vintage 40s, 50s collections; Postwar, Mod Generation LIGHTING House of Antique Hardware houseofantiquehardware.com Romantic, Mid-century & Classical crystal chandeliers; mid-century fixtures LEVITT RESOURCES retrorenovation.com/?s=levitt DESIGN ON A BUDGET p. 25 CHAIRS From artist/interior designer Susan Sargent: susansargent.com. See her book The Comfort of Color (Bulfinch). p. 27 ARCHITECT John Altobello, Cambridge, MA: johnaltobelloarchitecture.com FURNITURE Warren Chairworks warrenchairworks.com ESTATE KITCHEN ARCHITECT Spence Kass, Kass and Associates, Philadelphia: kassarchitects.com GC Bryant Phillips Construction Inc., Devon, PA: bryantphillipsconstruction.com KITCHEN DESIGN Joanne Hudson, Philadelphia: joannehudson.com/pages/kitchen-design CABINETMAKER Downsview Kitchens downsviewkitchens.com TRIM Tague Lumber, Media, PA: taguelumber.com PLASTERWORK Felber Ornamental, Norristown, PA: felber.net MARBLE FLOORING Calacatta Gold with Black Absolute granite Michael Addesso Marble & Granite World addessomgw.com TIN CEILING Shanko Metal Ceilings shanko.com SUBWAY TILES Joanne Hudson Basics…