The Historic District

Nice, JRC!! Very.... Today I re-adjusted a few pieces of siding I had installed in repair in response to a request from my Upper Management to make them more straight They now meet approval. Then I began the arduous process of cutting out the siding on the gable end of the house over my "ell&qu...

Hi, pretty excited here! We bought our dream "old farmhouse on a big hill in the boonies' last July. This is a pretty special place...one of ~30 "Grand Army of the Republic" gatherings was held here, as the first owner was a notable Union veteran. With that in mind, we're trying to be...

Hi, as several others have said...you really want to find out about the bones. The place still has some charm, and you can ADD/"put back" charm, for sure. But I'd really be curious about - What is under that vinyl siding? What's the undercarriage look like - can you get in the crawlspace/b...

Mostly, Gothic - and I'm not too happy to say this - most of what I see are people trying to make old homes "new". The energy-efficient craze has overflowed into the 'own a piece of history' fad. Depends on where you live. I am in the sticks, so most of the homes around me are less-touched...

Hi Gothic, I became a house painter about 13 years ago, under an "old timer" here in Maine. We painted all sorts of places, inside and out, of course, but the area holds so many from 1850 to 1940 that you naturally ended up working on them most of all. After learning enough to go on my own...

Hi, I had registered here and browsed, then got side-tracked by my own place! It is coming along great. Yes, I'm a restoration house painter. I wonder if the OP ever got their question answered? Short story is, if you don't want to cover your beautiful home with some sort of abomination vinyl junk, ...

Hi Guys, Thanks for the feedback. I've done a bunch of reading at Greenbuilding...good stuff (no, GREAT stuff), but I'm having some intellectual logjams trying to then cobble that info back to our 'retro' home situation. Modern "high efficiency" building techniques require so much of a bal...

Hi Chad, I know I am late to the party, but maybe this will help you...I had the same problems with my single hung windows/wood storm sashes. I found this site: http://saveamericaswindows.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5208 Described are interior storm panels, which seal the window from the INSIDE. This ...

Thank you! It will be 30 below here in January; new to the house, but fortunately not the area, LOL! How they did it in the 1800s with just fireplaces amazes me...

Hi Everyone, This is my first forum post. I've looked around quite a few other places, and this one seems to be pretty active, happily! I have an 1860 Cape farmhouse in Maine. The walls are uninsulated, original windows with wooden storms (and interior storm panels I made up). So far we're in good s...