A while ago a friend of mine bought an old historic farmhouse that needed a lot of work. Work which he was hoping to partially do himself. He asked me to stop by because he wanted some advice. He was worried about the house. Worried about what he paid for it, all that it needed, and how much money he didn’t have for renovation. He’d spun himself into such a state that he had asked me over to see what kind of work he should do to put the house back on the market.
Let me assure you, this was a beautiful house with solid bones. It had high ceilings and well-proportioned gracious rooms. It had tall baseboards and detailed window trim, and lots of character with a built-in cubby here and a lead-paned window there. What else did it have? Well, it had the problems that lots of old homes do. It had bulging and cracked horse-hair plaster walls. It had drafty windows and shallow closets. The floors sloped in certain areas and were crudely patched in others.
This wasn’t my client. He was a friend. I showed up with muffins and coffee. We walked around and he told me that he hadn’t planned on new dry wall for the whole house, and that the windows that had looked so pretty from the street were actually drafty and needed to be replaced. There were other flaws he listed; the old clawfoot tub with rust stains, the exposed pipes, the dumb waiter the kids would get trapped in, and so on. After he got it all out, I put my hand on his shoulder and gently told him that I thought he was approaching his house all wrong.
Because every house has a point of view, and also a tipping point. And when you are renovating you have to figure out what yours are. Be careful about moving into that older home, with a DIY mindset, and getting hung up on a certain type of Instagram-worthy end result.
Unless you have deep pockets of course.
So be careful about ripping down the cracked horsehair plaster from one wall while wanting to keep the other walls that were marginally better. Because if you do, you may be embarking on a tail-chasing journey that I call, “give a mouse a cookie.” It’s a children’s book reference about a mouse that knocks on your door and asks for a cookie. Then he wants a glass of milk. Then a mirror to check for a milk mustache. And then he wants some clippers to trim his hair … and, well, you get the idea. And in this example your house is that mouse.
Because if you put up one crisp clean wall of drywall in a room where the other walls are original, you’ll realize the other walls want that drywall too. And after you do that, you will have to replace your trim which will now be crisp and clean with precise edges and sharp lines. But it will not match the soft-edged, weathered trim in the rest of the house. And then there are the windows, with their ancient wavy paned glass, that now look really look out of place. The next thing you know, your house is asking you for clippers so that it can trim its hair, just like that mouse.
Please don’t get me wrong, there is absolutely nothing wrong with taking a sad old house and stripping it down the studs and replacing everything. Sometimes it’s necessary, and it can be done with love and care so that your old home, with its new materials, looks sort of old again—but sharper. And everything is plumb and square and there is no lead paint and the windows all tilt-in for easy cleaning. I work on houses like that all the time and the results are amazing. It just takes time, skill and money.
And by the way, I never replace everything. There are always things worth saving. Maybe it’s the original fireplace mantel, or a light fixture I get re-wired. Or maybe I take those old wood planks and turn them into a rustic vanity base or a door to your pantry. Because all these old homes tell a story, and you don’t want to lose the history in yours.
So back to my muffin eating friend. What did I tell him, while his head was spinning with all the cookies, he thought he had to give his house? Well, I pointed out my perspective on his gorgeous antique house, keeping in mind his budget and timeline of course. I saw a grand old lady that
had been standing for over a hundred years and would probably be standing in a hundred more.
I suggested he lean-in to the imperfect nature of the horsehair plaster. It’s sweet evidence of the housebuilding methods of a bygone era. True, the cracks are temperamental, and they may need repeated attention, but you can fill them and then paint the wall a flat finish and I love the character at the end. And same goes for that baseboard and window trim. Lean-in to those dings and scrapes. They are like your home’s laugh-lines. They were earned and they tell the story of prior generations. Plus, that kind of detail in a home is harder and harder to find.
I bought a set of chairs from an antique shop once, and I was raising an eyebrow at the wear that was showing on all of their bottom rungs. The shop owner said, “Oh that comes from years of use. don’t change that!” And it always stuck with me because I think he was right.
My friend’s old windows? Try a good set of storms for now. The wavy glass? They look that way because of the years gravity has been pulling them down. They’ve earned their right to stay for now too. The rusty tub? Get it re-faced. The exposed pipes? Box them in if you must, or just paint them the wall color for now. They’re just proof that the house didn’t start with extensive plumbing. The patched floors? Don’t sweat them too much. They are just another element that traces the story of your home, and they’ll recede once they are refinished and possibly stained.
Are there exceptions to all that? Of course there are. You don’t want to live with something if it’s covering up deeper problems. So, if you are getting mold stains repeatedly in one area you should find out where that water is coming from. And there are things that are never old-house charming; like scratched door trim from a dog wanting out, or water stains on the ceiling, or floors that need refinishing, or some of those “improvements” they made in the 1970’s. So common sense is in order here.
But ultimately it doesn’t matter if you are going for that new-house crisp look, or that old-house look with generations of charm. It’s just helpful to know which way you are leaning, and to keep that in mind for your home renovation projects. Especially before you tackle a larger project like a kitchen or a pantry.
How did my friend do, you may be wondering? Well, I saw him at a party a few months later. And it may have been his martini talking, but he stayed in that house and even credited me with turning his whole renovation around. So yes, he leaned-in to those lumpy walls and the imperfect trim and said it all looked great. And that’s good news for the mouse… I mean the house…. because eating a whole box of cookies isn’t good for anyone.
Jennifer Coles is a local interior designer. www.colescoloranddesign.com instagram: coles_color_and_design
