Quarter sawn red oak and walnut shelving/cabinets. Benjamin Moore Webster Green (color of the yr 2027)

Owned her about a year now, making a massive project of doing it right. Any interest in posting more?

We just bought a house with the pictured tile. It’s not in great shape (dirty, cracked in spots) but I’m dying to keep it. It all has to be removed anyway because we have to relevel the floor… getting a lot of pressure from our GC and my husband to get rid of it. Am I crazy for wanting to try to restore?? Is it too much work?

ETA: there are structural issues with the floor / breaks. The tile sits atop a significant amount of concrete that has to be removed. Not releveling just for the hell of it :)

ETA again — ok this was actually amazing i just showed my husband this thread and he has been convinced it’s worth it. That said we still have to find a way to carefully remove it and clean it… does anyone have advice about how to do that??

Ok final edit! I think! Sounds like removing is basically impossible - we’ll push for other ways to fix the beams below and see what happens.

Appreciate you all.

Ok I lie, I’ll just keep updating y’all since there is investment. Said husband (who is actually great! I shouldn’t have thrown him under the bus above, but I had no idea this post would get this traction) is at the new place cleaning the tile and getting texts from me with instructions from the more helpful / constructive comments. And we scheduled a walkthrough with a gentleman who specializes in historic homes where we live to get his take.

There are so many layers of paint on everything it's possible to know who did what and when, but it's clear someone sent a prek class blindfolded through the house with loaded paint brushes 😂. I'm talking every pane of glass , every radiator, air vent, door, doorknob, light fixture, etc, has some level of rogue paint. Full brush strokes, drops, splats, you name it. It's mind boggling how anyone did work like that and thought yeah that's fine lol. I understand accidents happen but to let the paint just dry on a surface and walk away is crazy. I'll be removing paint from random surfaces in my house for the rest of my life lol.

Thought I'd share our bedroom transformation with some strangers who will appreciate it.

We stripped the mantle mostly ourselves (due to medical things, I let a contractor do the final sanding and staining). The floors are the original heartwood pine from 1900. They were under a filthy, decades-old carpet and a fake wood vinyl tile with an insane tar backing. We wanted to do the stripping ourselves, but the tar required jackhammer removal.

We love it so much.

Sash weight cord finally gave out, but I need the breeze.

Rocking the empty lime seltzer can today

The turnkey on this lock isn’t unlocking anymore. The bolt is currently in the doorframe, so I’m not able to swing the door open, though the doorknob works just fine. The turnkey above the knob has some wiggle room, but it just is sticking hard when attempting to unlock it. Wasn’t sure if unscrewing the door plate would help or make matters worse. There is a keyhole on the outside, but Ive never had a key for it.

Hello! My wife and just bought our first home - 100+ year old home that’s had lots of great renos / work already done on it. But after home inspection, the inspector recommended we insulate the basement (bare cinder block), and attic better. We’re in zone 6. Right now the basement has no insulation but a few loose mouldy squares in the rim joists. And the attic has a few inches of loose stuff on the “floor”. The roof is new steel.

I looked up some stuff online on insulating the rim joists with spray. Some people say don’t do it though because “old houses need to breathe” . Also wondering what I should do in the attic. People have expressed that insulating could hurt the home’s potential to ventilate properly and make mould happen…so confused as to what to do. I want to insulate to help mitigate our heating costs, but don’t want to something that could hurt the house in the long run.

Any advice or learning resources anyone can point me too?

Thanks a bunch!

She's all mine!
After house hunting for 17 months finally got my 50s bathroom.
I am so excited to decorate but want to keep it as authentic as possible.

The maroon tiling seems out of place and kind of clashes with the pink and blue.
I'm not sure how to keep things cohesive with this color combo.

Looking to add storage options and decor!

Any and all advice/ inspo is appreciated.

So I’ve been using it on the floor so they at least match now. It’s not perfect by any means but it’ll do till I can get them refinished if I ever find someone. And it’s better than the carpet that was here

Help me set realistic expectations for a trim renovation project I'm starting by showing me what your trim looks like.

I just bought a 160 year old house. Most of the trim has been painted many types over with gross cracking caulking and seems. I started by using a 5-1 tool to clear out the old caulk from one section but that tore off a bunch of paint leaving an even less attractive mess.

So its back to the drawing boards.

What does your trim look like? Looking for both stained and painted, thanks!

So home was built in 1927. There was a cheap LED light fixture just screwed to the plaster. I took it down to find this. I want to install a traditional light fixture that uses a 4” universal circle bar. Not sure what to do here… the hickey in the middle of this box is about 5/8” in diameter but I don’t have my calipers with me. Anyone recognize this? It has threads on the outside and the small hole in the center is threaded as well…

1890 house, nice white basement walls when we bought it 13 years ago. now the basement is becoming a workshop space so it’s getting some attention. For a while the whitewash has been chipping and turning to dust from water/efflorescence. I understand that this is kind of just an ongoing maintenance thing in a house built like this, with a fairly high water table

I just want to confirm that this is whitewash/lime, something I can chip away and reapply, and not latex paint. it doesn’t seem like latex, but I read that latex comes off in sheets, which this is sort of doing! So any insight into what I’m working with here would be appreciated.

(I’m also working on water infiltration issues where I can, but a lot of the worst of it is the front of the house where there’s a big wraparound porch, so I don’t really have access to the ground there)

Inside my plaster wall is another plaster wall, on lath that's mounted to strips that run up and down the middle of the studs. Could you imagine being so lucky as to find such a thing? Not me, I did not imagine this would be the thing that stops me from insulating my walls. Money, tools, time and skill are all reasonable barriers to energy savings. A whole extra wall? Mind bottling. Has anybody else found themselves in such a predicament? Google says it's called backplastering, and I would imagine there's a ton of info about this in a book in the deep end of a library that likely also has walls inside the walls. Rockwool at the top of the stud bays in the attic, fire foam to block the ceiling to 2nd floor stud bay cavities?

Water is pooling on my roof away from the downspout, causing interior leaks — presumably due to the house settling. I can patch it more or have the roof replaced, but I want to stop the water from pooling. Logistically can’t add a downspout at the deepest part of the pooling due to a bay window below (bottom right of picture). Outside perimeter is a tin cornice on an 1880s Queen Anne townhouse. Any advice? Thanks in advance.

Hi,

Moving into inherited home (1927) that has some water damage. One of the guest bedrooms had a significant leak and the ceiling collapsed :(

I'm worried about potential asbestos exposure and want to get it checked ASAP. Partner is not as anxious as me.

Anyone have a similar experience?? If tested positive what was the aftermath?? Thanks.

We are the 4th family to occupy our century home built in 1906.

I bought a lovely 1904 Foursquare in WA state a few months ago. I’ve been thinking a lot about earthquakes recently and am thinking about getting my house seismically retrofitted so I can get decent earthquake insurance. I’m not sure how necessary it is - the house has survived two pretty serious quakes without much damage - but I think it will give me peace of mind. Anyone else done this? If so how much did it cost and how long did it take? Any suggestions, cautionary tales, etc? My house is about 3,500 sqft, two story, with half crawlspace half basement. Thanks for any feedback!

Hi all, have a home that was built in 1907 and does not have A/C. What are the pros and especially the cons of trying to install central air? My guess is once you open up the walls for duct work it might bring on a whole host of other problems that will need to be remedied. Thoughts/experiences? Thanks!

This is in my soon-to-be home office in our 1925 home. I want to repaint the whole thing eventually. I’ve never done any sort of wall repair beyond spackling so wondering what anyone else’s experience has been with fixing cracks in plaster themselves? The first photo shows the wall zoomed out/before I removed some paint to see what was going on underneath - which is then in the other photos. Based on my research of the process I feel like I could do it, but wanted some more opinions!

I’m in the middle of repainting all my trim and wondering what to do about my front door. I live in a 1937 bungalow.

Pics 1-4 show painting issues on the frame and actually door. Note none of this paint has tested positive for lead yet, and I’ve been using the fluoro spec spray to test, but I’m still using lead safe practices as I assume there’s lead somewhere.

My first question is what should I do to fix this paint so I can repaint? Is cleaning, scraping off flaking /peeling bits, then priming and repainting enough?

My second question is about the inside of the door frame (jamb? Threshold? Not sure what this in between space is called; pics 4-7). It’s got terrible weatherstripping I know needs to be replaced, but also some holes/gaps in it. ( pic 6).

Can this be fixed? Can I fix it? Or does it need to be replaced?

Thanks so much for your insight and advice!