Making new softwood look like old

[Anonymous]

Hi just my 2 pennies worth... I wouldn't be trying to make new look like old, I'd be removing the old and replacing with new !! ;-)

 

[CliffordPope]

Hi just my 2 pennies worth... I wouldn't be trying to make new look like old, I'd be removing the old and replacing with new !! ;-)

Isn't this a Period Property forum?

 

[Feltwell]

Hi just my 2 pennies worth... I wouldn't be trying to make new look like old, I'd be removing the old and replacing with new !! ;-)

Hmm, is that a "fishing" wind-up or serious cre8toruk? I do note the smilie!

 

[mims&pip]

Hi just my 2 pennies worth... I wouldn't be trying to make new look like old, I'd be removing the old and replacing with new !! ;-)

I presume you're kidding, uttering such blasphemy in these 'ere parts? :shock:

 

[Anonymous]

Weeelllll... just an opinion, I think it was an English Heritage article that said that you shouldn't try and make something look old... replacing an old rotten beam for example with a new one is accepted wisdom... at the end of the day it's some skirting and it's up to the OP what they do with it.... You can replace old battered skirting board with nice new wooden skirting stain it a nice colour imho that's perfectly acceptable, all a question of taste I guess. TBH I haven't read all the other posts so maybe I didn't get all the context.

Paul.

 

[Penners]

That's true up to a point, Paul. If you're replacing - for example - an old beam, the current conservation approach is not to use an old beam in its place, but to use new oak. This is regarded as an 'honest' repair, which won't confuse future generations as to what is original and what isn't.

However, we're talking about a pinboard here! And if you look at the photo you'll see that Feltwell hasn't attempted to make it look genuinely old - he has simply stained and finished the wood in a colour that is sympathetic to the old woodwork in the house.

 

[Feltwell]

You can replace old battered skirting board with nice new wooden skirting stain it a nice colour imho that's perfectly acceptable, all a question of taste I guess.
Paul.

There's battered and then there's battered of course, but to me the dings and marks of age - patina in general - are one of the biggest attractions of an old house and are a large part of what gives it it's character. If someone wants dead flat walls and perfect skirting & architrave, it'll look like a new house - so why not buy a new house then?

The trouble with patina is that once it's gone, it's gone for good. Yes you can try to fake it - which isn't good practice as is rightly said above, and is something I am guilty of - but it's very hard to do so convincingly.

Sometimes totally rotten skirting has to go, I've some in my porch that I think will have to be replaced, wet rot has finished it off. It'll get replaced with a like-for-like pattern, and it will look far too new, but there's no other choice. But some bashes and scrapes in otherwise solid skirting are just character.

A positive side effect of liking patina is making you much more relaxed about your house! For example, if one of my kids decides to launch a toy car down the stairs at great velocity that slams into the nice big high original skirting at the bottom, the dink in the skirting it creates already has lots of friends, probably in part due to over 100 years of other little darlings launching toy cars down the stairs. Do I tell the kids to stop it? Of course I do - and they do - but I don't stress about the newly created mark!

 

[Penners]

There's battered and then there's battered

This is my favourite kind of battered:

 

[Feltwell]

With mushy peas as well - I approve Penners!

Alas such indulgencies are strictly banned for Feltwell right now, as he seeks to become less circumferentially enlarged. Why is the nicest food also invariably the least healthy?

 

[Anonymous]

Of course you're right it all comes down to a question of taste and the OP has done what I had suggested from the look of the photos.

I've been struggling to understand the use of the word Patina when it comes to marks and dings and dents and damage to wood for some time and generally when traversing these forums and other similar web pages. I did think that Patina referred to the grain and colour of old wood but it seems not - so with no other intention other than to educate.... http://www.drloriv.com/Tips/ID/39/What-is-Patina , I also apologise for the digression !

It does all boil down to a question of opinion at the end of the day.
The skirting boards in my house are almost certainly C20th additions (pretty sure no one knew what MDF was in the 17 / 1800's ) so I'm not fortunate enough to have this problem .

Likewise a wooden plank door in my bedroom is so knackered that it just needs to be replaced, it's been "repaired" by someone nailing strips of non similar wood to the top of it, it doesn't fit the frame and I can tell the person who cut it last to fit over the carpet cleary had, had a few !! It might be 100 years old but these things have a life span ! What I'll do is buy a replacement door in a similar style i.e. plank and it'll look awesome .

I'm now going to go and buy some fish & chips since the last post has made me really hungry!!!!

All the best though with the project.

Paul.

 

[plasticpigeon]

There are plenty of differing opinions on here. Personally I love historic buildings for the most part, but I would also be very happy if not happier to live in a new build, if the new build had the charm of something historic. The charm to me does not come from wear or imperfections, but from the designs and materials used. Unfortunately I have never seen a new build within the grasp of a pleb like me that comes anywhere close. However if you have a massive wedge then anything is available. Please have a look at these country houses by Quinlan and Francis Terry for example. I can't imagine anyone complaining that they lack patina!

http://www.qftarchitects.com/projects/english-houses/

 

[Penners]

such indulgencies are strictly banned for Feltwell right now, as he seeks to become less circumferentially enlarged

I've found the solution to that problem. Stop caring!

By the way, Feltwell, I must caution you about referring to yourself fin the third person. It makes you sound like a certain controversial President Elect!

 

[Flyfisher]

:lol: :lol: :lol:

'The Feltwell'. :wink:

 

[Feltwell]

ARRGGGHHHHH!!!! NNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:wink:


I'll get you back Penners, you'll see. I can hold a grudge better than Trump! :lol:

 

[Penners]

I'll get you back Penners, you'll see. I can hold a grudge better than Trump! :lol:

Oh no - have you got copies of those tapes of me in a Russian hotel?

 

[Feltwell]

You weren't caught singing "I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts" in the shower again were you Penners?

 

[Feltwell]

There are plenty of differing opinions on here. Personally I love historic buildings for the most part, but I would also be very happy if not happier to live in a new build, if the new build had the charm of something historic. The charm to me does not come from wear or imperfections, but from the designs and materials used.[/img]

To me it's the design and materials, but also the use the building has had - simple things like the wear marks in a old cupboard door from a turnbuckle, stone steps shaped by thousands of footsteps, handles that are polished only where a hand grips them - all the stuff that takes decades to form to me gives a house extra character that even those lovely new builds you link to will be lacking.

I've 2 doors into the eaves in my attic. 1 is original to the house, the door is marked from use, it has a lovely old lock, the architrave has taken some knocks over the years, the hinges are a little bit corroded - it looks old but is still perfectly functional. The other one is new - the architrave around it is the same pattern but is pristine, the door itself has been made from floorboards (just like the original one) with some lovely figuring in the grain, but it looks pristine as well. I made the second one - it opened up a very useful and hitherto blanked off storage space - but I think you can guess which one I prefer. I couldn't make it look the same, it wouldn't appear right, it would look false.

Good job we've all got different views - it'd be a boring old world if we were all the same.

 

[Alex O]

I kind of agree with both views. I love the dings and patina of age, and I love the weight of history that comes with old objects and old buildings - the sense of all those lives and stories that passed through, and the excitement of discovering little things about the way people lived.

But I do think that there's a conservatism in British culture about architecture that can be to our detriment, and my personal theory is that it's a hangover from the days of Empire (I think as a nation we have a taste for the Victorian). New builds should look new, not like pastiches of houses from 100 years ago.

So while I'm endeavouring to renovate my Edwardian house in a sympathetic manner (and I like antique furniture in an antique house - if I were in a shiny flat it'd be Eames all the way), I'm not going to shy away from modern materials and modern conveniences where they're appropriate. And nor would the Edwardians have.

That said, I completely get where Feltwell is coming from, because where you're patching in and repairing, a lot of the time it makes sense to try to match the new materials to the old. I do like the English Heritage approach of not trying to blend new materials in when it comes to a stone wall or something, but a bit of skirting board? That would look silly.

Does any of this make sense? I have been at the wine...

 

[Feltwell]

Makes perfect sense, and actually I agree with you.

A work colleague showed me a picture of his (then being built) new house, saying "Ohh you'll hate this one" - and to his surprise I said that it looks really good. Why? It was a modern house in a small development of 4 houses (that were all co-ordinated in appearance but individually designed) that wasn't trying, badly, to look old like so many new builds do - no Georgian-esque porch, no UPVC sashes, no fibreglass chimney - it was unashamedly modern but well designed and built with quality materials - nice aluminium windows & doors with slim frame profiles, no chunky UPVC, for example.

I haven't got anything against well done pastiche, as PP showed, but that's a rare thing, most of it is bad!

Modern conveniences - yes, I don't shy away from them, I have heating and a fitted kitchen like everyone else! I've an old scullery that projects out of the back of my house into the garden, it's a long, thin room. At some point I'd love to take the front wall out and put modern sliding, folding doors in, that will be unashamedly modern. Why? Because that room has been bashed around something rotten already - the wall in question has fairly nasty 1980's French doors and a window in currently, the wall itself is not very well built, the floor has been badly re-laid at some point - so I won't be taking any of the character or originality of the house away in making the changes I propose. I've no idea what it looked like originally.

 

[Penners]

You weren't caught singing "I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts" in the shower again were you Penners?

I can't help it. I spent many years in the advertising business.