Architectural heritage
Building histories, restoration guidance, and careful notes on the craft of old houses, written for owners and for anyone who stops to look twice at a cornice.
Read the house historiesOne house, six lives
Hand-hewn oak sills and posts, pegged mortise-and-tenon joints, and a massive center chimney that heats every room.
A new front with flat pilasters, a wider entry with sidelights, and six-over-six sash windows in wavy cylinder glass.
A bay window, a porch with turned posts and sawn brackets, and a slate roof replacing the original cedar shingles.
Knob-and-tube wiring and the first indoor plumbing are threaded through plaster and lath, room by room.
Siding over clapboards, dropped ceilings, an enclosed porch. Most of the original fabric survives, hidden rather than lost.
Layers are documented before anything is removed. Windows are reglazed, plaster is reattached, and the frame is left to speak.
From the archive
Restoring a historic home is rarely a straight renovation. The biggest challenges usually come from hidden damage, outdated systems, preservation rules, and the difficulty of making modern comfort work without erasing the building’s character.
If you are planning a restoration, the smartest approach is to treat the house as both a structure and a historical […]
When you own an older house, the biggest mistake is treating every project like the same kind of work. Restoration and renovation solve different problems: restoration aims to return a building to a specific historic character, while renovation improves how the house functions today. Choosing the wrong approach can erase original fabric, waste money, or […]
Когда начинается реконструкция исторического дома, каждый снятый слой штукатурки может унести с собой информацию, которую уже не восстановить. Я не раз видел, как под обоями 1950-х годов обнаруживали оригинальные обшивки из досок, а за гипсокартоном — кирпичную кладку XVIII века. Документирование перед началом работ — это не формальность и не «сделать несколько снимков». Это создание рабочего архива, […]
Every old house is a document. Before you repair it, learn to read it, because the most valuable thing a restoration can keep is the evidence of how the house was made.
Catalogue of subjects
