Tabla de contenidos para March/April 2024 en Old House Journal

1. WISTERIA WALL An authentic collection of Arts & Crafts period stencils from the Rasmussen collection includes a repeating Wisteria frieze (Ras008), corner block (Ras082) and border motif (Ras066). A three-stencil package is $79. MB Historic Décor, (978) 464-0162, mbhistoricdecor.com 2. FREE RANGING Hand-printed in the original colors and designed for this maker, Chickens in Clover is a design from the late 1940s by legendary Chicago designer Edgar Miller. The paper is 20" wide and sold in 7-yard rolls: $89 per roll. Bassett & Vollum, (563) 323-4077, bassettandvollum.com 3. FIRST BLOSSOMS Dogwood is the first printed wallpaper design from this boutique company founded in 2017 by designer Melanie Nead. Shown in the delicate Ivory colorway, it’s also available in three others and a Jacquard upholstery fabric. An 11-yard roll is…

Rigorous about quality control, the Santantonios knew that ordering ready-to-assemble (RTA) cabinets would allow them to personalize every aspect of installation as well as save at least 50% of the cost of custom cabinets. These RTA cabinets included all the components needed to build every cabinet and finish each drawer, milled to their specifications and measurements. Manufactured throughout the world, most RTA cabinets are sold online through various resellers. Cabinet parts are delivered in a flat pack along with all the hardware needed for assembly. ● The type of RTA cabinets the Santantonios ordered are considered fully custom. The beaded cabinet face frames they chose are constructed from solid maple while the box components are either ½" or ¾" plywood. Boxes are assembled using a combination of dado and dovetail…

Repairing damaged plaster is always a multistep process in our house. Any cracks are stabilized with plaster washers and Plaster Magic, an adhesive plus conditioner that re-establishes the bond between plaster and lath. Once the bond is set, we remove the plastic washers. If the surface has been painted, it’s then stripped using Peel Away 1 or another low-VOC stripper, allowed to work overnight. It’s not strictly necessary to strip every last scrap of paint, though we prefer complete removal because we typically finish the repaired wall with lime plaster in a three-coat process.…

1. A PLASTER BASIC This lightweight, aluminum plaster hawk features a 12" x 12" blade scored to keep mud or plaster in place with rounded edges and corners. It’s fitted on a wood handle with a sponge-rubber hand protector to prevent calluses: $30.35. Kraft Tool, (800) 422-2448, krafttool.com 2. HEALING WALLS The Homeowner’s Pack provides materials to repair small areas of loose plaster or 9' of plaster cracks. The kit includes three cartridges of adhesive, a spray bottle of conditioner, 25 plastic clamps and screws, a plastic syringe, and disposable gloves: $89. Plaster Magic, (802) 254-1330, plastermagic.com 3. LIGHT THE WAY The Planex random orbital drywall sander not only reaches extreme heights, but also is equipped with an all-around LED light ring to reveal unevenness as you work. Comfort features…

Old houses are out-of-square; settlement brings skewed window and door jambs, most notably on upper floors. Also, older styles ushered in, say, octagonal windows and intersecting wood mouldings of different widths. Repair and replacement work means figuring out elusive angles. A simple technique for marking an odd angle is just to draw a line from the interior part of the angle (for example, at the intersection of the side and head jambs) and connect it to lines defining the exterior extent of the mouldings. This direct approach is usually easier than buying the latest digital angle gauge to find that your jamb corner is 93.63°, at which point you must divide that in half and transfer that measurement to your miter saw (which usually designates a 90° cut as 0°).…

FATHER OF AMERICAN ARTS & CRAFTS Gustav Stickley published 221 house plans, between 1904 and 1916, in his influential magazine The Craftsman. No one had done a comprehensive study of the plans or the built houses until Ray Stubblebine published, in 2006, Stickley’s Craftsman Homes—beyond impressive in scope, scholarship, and sheer heft. He follows up with a second book, somewhat smaller yet comprehensive and filled with new details. An update that includes new information—and houses—discovered in the past 18 years, this one can stand on its own for those who don’t have the out-of-print tome. The book is essential for anyone interested in the Craftsman legacy and the period’s domestic architecture. Stubblebine, an AP and Reuters photojournalist who has studied Stickley since 1982, includes both historic and contemporary photos. He…

With its arched openings and period lighting, the bathroom looks original to the 1940 Tudor Revival house in Portland, Oregon. Yet it’s the result of a sensitive remodeling that included moving the toilet and the sink and installing new tile and fixtures. The room is within the original footprint but it feels larger now. The existing bath, which served all the upstairs bedrooms, was awkward and cramped and offered almost no storage space. With the intention to make the new bathroom fit seamlessly, the family hired Craftsman Design and Renovation, a local design–build firm specializing in vintage homes. Their design divides the space into three zones: a toilet alcove that includes a tall storage cabinet, a tub and shower enclosure, and between those two alcoves, a lavatory with a vanity.…

We’d ordered a 33" fireclay farmhouse sink with a left-hand drain to make room for more storage underneath. Fitting the sink into the supporting cabinet and leveling it was the stuff of nightmares. Because the sink was handmade, it was slightly out of level from left to right. Not only did leveling it leave a substantial gap on the right-hand side, but also the sink needed a slight adjustment to ensure that water would always drain to the left.…

While stripping wallpaper in the library of the towering 1898 Queen Anne he shares with his spouse, Laura, Mike Brosius found a scrap of frieze decoration under a strip of fancy picture-rail moulding. On the ceiling above it was a period ceiling paper with a complementary design, obscured by water damage and at least six subsequent layers of wallpaper. While most restorers would have simply covered and repainted the damage, Mike and Laura wouldn’t settle for less than a full restoration of the circa 1890s frieze and ceiling. Given that Mike was struggling to remove the paper without damaging the fragile plaster, the couple was fortunate to have the services of a recently retired Hollywood scenic artist, Joanne Lumpkin Brown. She suggested restoring the existing remnants and filling in missing…

The kitchen in our 1908 Foursquare was neither original nor convenient. Cabinets and most of the appliances were shoved into a small space at one end of the 12' x 21' room. Tiled countertops were mismatched. The room was full of annoying quirks: drawers that wouldn’t fully open or led nowhere, spiky sunflower-motif cabinet knobs that occasionally drew blood. It was impossible for both of us to work comfortably in the kitchen at the same time. Because the room is longer than it is wide, the kitchen couldn’t accommodate a central island or long runs of counters. It’s also interrupted by four passages to other rooms, which remain critical to the house’s flow, history, and views. One large opening leads to the dining room; we use the tall window that…

During a 1992 makeover, the drywall for the kitchen ceiling had been attached with nails instead of screws. The nails had begun to pop out, allowing sagging and cracking. I used a magnet to identify the nail locations, dug out every one, and replaced each with a drywall screw. That was the easy part. Touching up the ceiling meant skimming it with two to three coats of joint compound, by hand, then smoothing out high spots and imperfections with a sander to give the impression that it’s plaster, not drywall.…

We saved the largest and most difficult cabinets until late in the installation, counting on repetition and muscle memory to make a two-person build go smoothly. step one With the sides and back framework assembled, Alex slides the top of the refrigerator cabinet in place while Wendy stands ready with a rubber mallet. step two After clamps are applied to keep the cabinet frame true, the couple further stabilize the structure by hammering a shelf into place, using soft mallets. step three Wendy supports the shelf while Alex affixes staples. step four Celebrating a job well done! THE PRO TIP Always specify an extra ½" of wood to the edge of any face frame or cabinet box that meets a wall. The added material allows for leeway to scribe and trim…

From his grandmother, designer Lewis Remeles inherited a nice but rather typical Victorian side table. He’d always liked it even though it clashed with his preferred contemporary/traditional style. While he was out shopping at a flea market one day, he spied a ca. 1920, hanging fish scale. Whipping out his tape measure, he realized its face was the same diameter as the table’s top. An update suggested itself. DETECTO SCALES was founded in 1900 in New York by the three Jacobs brothers, who had emigrated from Hungary. Specializing in hanging scales for bakers, butchers’ meat, and fish markets as well as doctors’ scales, the company was a major scale manufacturer for almost a century. (In 1981, the company was acquired by Cardinal Scale, who are still making scales.) You can…

This Victorian Revival space perfectly suits a charming house filled with color, texture, pattern—and antiques. WE STARTED at the top, with an embossed metal ceiling that recalls kitchens of the late-19th and early-20th centuries. We bought copper panels from W. F. Norman, then painted the background with a soft, powdery green to tone down the shine. Next came the upper walls, papered in Morris’s ‘Golden Lily’ pattern. I’d bought a Collier & Plucknett English oak sideboard, ca. 1900, from a local antiques shop; it inspired the room’s period cabinetwork. Talented local furnituremaker Stephen Hultberg built cabinets with reference to the sideboard’s details, including a backsplash of hand-carved scalloped panels. We had the brass pulls reproduced. (After Stephen’s meticulous finishing, it’s hard to tell which cabinets are old and which are…