The Historic District

I finished restoring and installing the 2 front windows in my 1920 workman's cottage in Northern WI. The original storms were so dry rotted at the bottom they were unusable. I saved them only to use the wavy glass for other future projects. I purchased beautiful original storm windows from a local a...

Thank you for the compliments! 1918Colonial. The original front portion of the house was built in 1920 as a workman's cottage by the lumber co. that founded the town we live in. I think in similarity to the company houses you were referring to. The front portion of the house was very well built, but...

This is a picture of my 1920 workman's image.jpeg image.jpeg This is the most recent pictures of our old house. There were 3 layers of siding. Rotten hardboard. Under that was insulbrick. The bottom layer was 6" bevel cedar siding. All of it on the old part of the house was in good condition. I...

I had a question about an interior wood finish. I'm in the process of installing a tongue and groove beadboard ceiling. Our house is a 1920 single story workman's cottage. Was originally dry walled. And the addition on the back of the house was built about 1935. Some dry wall and some of the walls w...

Thank you very much Jade for the microwave idea. It never occurred to me to heat the putty. Thinking about it, it makes perfect sense. The putty seems a bit on the dry side. After heating would it be advisable to sparingly add a little linseed oil to the putty if it was needed to make the putty a li...

I used points to hold in the glass. About every 2 inches or so on the storm windows. When I did the upper and lower sashes I used about 3 or 4 per side. I noticed that getting the putty consistency right is more difficult than it seems. My first one looks like "crinkle finish" paint. I not...

I just realized I may have made a big mistake. I cleaned my extremely dirty storm windows with window cleaner and then reglazed them with Sarco type M. I laid them flat and there drying prior to painting now. That's been a couple of days ago. I was just thinking that in a couple of days they should ...

Phil, The kitchen in my house ( the addition) looks like it was mostly white oak. But I think it's also mixed hardwoods. It looks like they also used elm or ash. Some of it appears to be boards of the same width just nailed down. There is about a 2x2 plywood patch slightly off the center of the floo...

Thank you everyone for your advice. We have had quite a bit of rain here recently. And the floor was soaked when I was removing it. After it has dried out for a few days in my garage most of the cupping seems to have gone out of it. I've been carefully scraping the grime out of the surfaces between ...

I was able to get enough maple flooring from an old abandoned Victorian that was being torn down to cover the old hacked up floor in our kitchen and bedroom of our 1920 vernacular. The salvaged floor in question was almost all warped cupped. Is it possible to save it by running it through a planer t...