Old houses, modern sensibilities and 'fashion'

[Cloudscape]

So many people seem to want to strip and lighten the colour of beams, old floors and other house timbers.

Quite a few people seem to want flat walls (including my neighbours, some of whom have laid pale wooden engineered floors).

Some people will bleach timbers to get maximum 'lightness'.

My neighbour didn't like some of her visible beams (too dark and rustic) and so she went to a salvage yard and chose some cleaner ones. :shock:

My chimneysweep told me that one of his clients took out a fantastic inglenook beam to put in a new clean/tidy/straight one. :?

Are people trying to make old houses blend better with modern furnishings?

Some people complain that black beams look like a pub. My house was a pub... so go figure! :lol: I've found very dark beams under 250-yr-old lime mortar (predating anything done in the late nineteeth and 20th centuries). It could be dirt, soot, dark paint... anything. But when people say they want the wood back in its 'natural colour', I wonder which natural colour they mean.

My house seems to have a mix of black beams, dark stained beams, naturally dirty dark beams, shellac, blackboard paint and who knows what else. I've tried to see the dark wood as 'bad', but I haven't convinced myself.

In one room the visible wood is lightened as far as it would go (by previous owner). I've tried seeing this lightness as "better" in some way... and I just don't. It just looks like a newly advertised 'barn conversion'. You expect to see little halogen spotlights picking out the best bits... funnily enough, there are some.

I keep thinking of the House Doctor recommending pale natural colours... and wondering if that thinking is being applied to some old houses... and wondering if this is current thinking (fashion) dictating 'renovation' style... and also wondering if/when this fashion will wear off.

A couple of my rooms were vaguely 'Victorianized' a couple of decades ago. The walls were skimmed, ogee skirting was added and the decorating is kind of Laura Ashley meets F&B (on a bad day). It looks daft and lifeless to me.

I went into a tiny cottage near me and the walls are a lumpy hotchpotch of lime plaster patching - done over the centuries... even framed pictures won't sit straight on it. The wood was a mix of dark shades and very scruffy. The overall effect was magical.

I haven't really started on my own renovation yet... I'm at the probing and prodding stage, trying to work out what's what. I'm not even sure what my 'taste' is anymore.

But I feel I want to work with what the house is - bend a bit to what the house really seems capable of, and try to work with it.

Maybe I just like 'scruffy'. :wink:

 

[Moo]

I like 'scruffy', too*, but I really don't like 'gloomy'.



*well, that's my excuse anyway

 

[Lime]

It sounds to me you have just the right attitude to live with an old house.
About what you say.......It doesn't have to be a very old house you know, people buy older houses all the time as a sort of second best.
It is almost as if within most house purchasers there an unfulfilled yearning for never having to "do" anything in a house again.
They hanker for their "own" house built just for them with all the little quirks they think should be in a house.
Of course the reality is somewhat different.
If and when they "have their own house built"
(translation: they select a very restricted range of boxes from a builders catalogue or view houses furnished with chesterfields etc. that seat a total of 1½ people)
they spend the next few months seesawing between smiling in a superior way at their acquaintances, worrying desperately about money and pulling their hair out at/with the builders.
Eventually their house is built.....and to "define" it from the others in the estate they then spend the next year or so putting in character features whilst desperately trying to ignore or get fixed what the builders haven't done properly.
They wax lyrical about a beam they have put in that looks like a dark mishappen piece of wood from B&Q but disappoints once touched as it is plastic.
They ask you what you think about their fireplace stuck on the wall with all the paraphernalia of old granny's cottage to make it look real. It isn't real of course and you can tell that by the long white flex running from it to the powerpoint halfway up the wall....It is about this time you notice the skirting board, mock victorian all of 3" high.
....I could go on.
Sad isn't it?

For me a house should be enjoyed.
I have never bought a new house (deprived obviously) and never want to, at least not if there is an old house to buy instead .... and there always is fortunately.

 

[JMartin]

It obviously takes a lot of hard work and commitment to renovate and then maintain an older property and it's more of a lifestyle choice than just a building to live in. I think some people like the prestige of living in an old house but find it doesn't suit their lifestyle or the image they want to portray to their friends.

We moved from a newish house last year into our current falling down 100yr old house and couldn't be happier. The newer house felt to me like a shoebox. The walls were short, the ceilings felt oppresive, and the rooms were all square. I hated it and although we lived there for 7 years never called it home. After a week in our new/old house we were calling it home and are sad to be away for a few days.

As for the old features, they're what makes a house a home in my opinion. I would give my right arm to be able to restore the interior of our house to what it was but finances don't allow us to do this at this point in our lives. It angers and saddens me that the sash windows were ripped out and replaced with boring, everybody has it white upvc...yuk!

Interestingly I have a friend who lives in a barn conversion that still has the old slate walls...I think she calls them shippens. The surveyor told her they would have to be replaced with solid walls because they have holes in them where the original fixtures were. It's the best example of a barn conversion I've seen with the surviving original features visible and the rest upgraded to a modern standard.

 

[MdB]

A house should be a home and not a museum piece.

This means that the current owners should love it and look after it and do what is best for the building in both the short term (whilst they live there) and in the long term (when the house is handed on to future generations). This does not mean that the house must be unchanging with everything kept as it was when the house was first built. It also doesn't mean that everything old can be ripped out and replaced with the latest fashion. What is appropriate for the building depends on the houses historical importance and the listed building ratings and COs guidance (with all its faults) gets this about right in my opinion.

My house has no historical importance but it does have a history. It has owned and lived in by many different people of the years and the changes they have made to the house can be seen if you know where to look. I will be making my own major changes including removal of close to 50% of the walls in the structure. The vast majority of the changes will be to 1970's dodgy block work for structural reasons but we will also be rearranging a couple of doors and adding underfloor heating. We will also be painting our black beams white and are in the process of pointing the stone work in lime. Exposed stone work is very much a modern fad but we like it and everyone that has seen what we have done so far likes it as well. The old walls are in better condition now than they have ever been and they can be rerendered in lime in the future if someone decides to.

I'm rambling a bit but my point is that there is nothing wrong with doing up a house in the way that you want to as long as it is not detrimental to the house in the long term. Be guided by the past but do not become a slave to the past.

 

[piper]

I played the organ for a service at the mediaeval church in the next village yesterday, and as I sat in a choirstall (no choir - too "low church") during the sermon, I looked at the plain lime-washed walls, plain glass windows with view of classic English countryside, exposed limestone columns, stone floor, dark oak 17th century pulpit, and the silver communion vessels on a small table with plain white cloth just in front of it - and thought it was the classic tasteful "period house" look - very puritan. Contrast somewhere like St Mark's Venice - dark, with gold mosaics gleaming through the incense smoke. Of course my village church would have had bright colours everywhere before the reformation, and the village houses would be dark hovels, smoke-blackened inside. Just some random reflections on "taste" :?

 

[Cloudscape]

I grew up in a house my father built. It was very trendy in its day (the 50s/60s). He even built in a 'stereogram' where you could switch the sound from room to room downstairs. ' Some of the windows were six-foot-square sheets of glass.

I dreamed of owning a minimalist cube - all edges and lines. Either that, or an old industrial building.

Instead, I've owned slightly tatty Edwardian and Victorian flats and houses. There was one very nice one - all deep skirting and good-quality materials. The rest have been ones that were hurriedly built in times of industrial boom.

The one I'm selling... I've given up on it. The benchmarks for interior quality have leapt past the level I can work to. While house-hunting, I saw a few Victorian and Georgian houses on my travels and all seemed to have been completely replastered, and were very white, magnolia, beige and pale wood. Nothing 'dark' remained. Even fireplaces had been painted white (again!) or removed with nice B&Q ones in their place. I had no idea that this was still going on.

I spent over a year looking at houses to find the one I've bought. It's a rambling pile of stone, whopping great wobbly beams, cracks, and dark old floors that go uphill and downhill. It's been bodged and patched and someone has sadly tried to tame bits of it. It's also moved around a lot. Timbers - extensively nibbled in places - have shifted in relation to one another. Things have chewed bits of it. :shock:

Half of me fell into a kind of fascination with the place. A kind of love. The rest of me looked at fault after fault, and I wondered how I would fix it... make it 'better', 'smarter', cleaner...

I'm gradually realizing that previous generations had their ideas of how these houses should look - the Victorians with all the black and white paint to maximize the half-timbered look, for instance. And we have our ideas too.

I'm also realizing that, to really wave a magic wand over this place and 'lighten it up' would take the rest of my life and all my money.

I know darkness can be seen as gloomy, but it can also be very atmospheric. It hides a multitude of lumps, bumps, wobbly bits and tattiness that have never been scrutinized in strong light. :wink:

I was going down the road of 'urban' meets 'period' until I found this place, and now I feel like I'm on a really interesting learning curve. The house is making me adjust all my priorities. Once upon a time, I wouldn't buy old furniture if I could see one woodworm hole in it. Now I have a house with thousands of woodworm holes.

The priority, I understand, is to let the house 'breathe' - so I will strip some paint and remove the gypsum plaster. I just hope that people's thinking doesn't change again... in years to come people might be slapping on vinyl matt emulsion and coccooning beams in paint again, having decided that retained mositure is good for the house... or something. :roll: :lol:

 

[alice]

I agree with Mdb- we live in houses, not museums. I hope I'm just one of many that will live in my house later and it would amuse me no end when I'm in the afterlife and find that in 2196 someone restored my brand new house in Texas to "back to the way it REALLY was in 1996". It would be interesting to see their interpretation of what 1996 looked like.

My house in Suffolk was build a hundred years earlier and rehab-ed all to hell about 10 years ago. So now it has modern DIY fireplaces, no dados, cream fitted carpet throughout and enough Artex to float a battleship. I'll spend quite a bit of time and money putting it right, but that's because what I feel is right is what I feel is right for the house...and I think the Arts and Craft style is right for me, too. When I pass on (I've no plans to ever sell, this house should end up as my retirement home), maybe someone will come in and strip out all the "old" stuff and modernize again to white walls, white brick fireplaces and cream carpet. They have every right to to that.

But I'll come back and haunt them.

alice

 

[NT]

Nothing wrong with a house thats a museum piece as well as comfortably habitable


NT

 

[MdB]

Nothing wrong with a house thats a museum piece as well as comfortably habitable

Without modern electrics? without modern heating? with an outside loo? Not for most people.

 

[JMartin]

I don't think anybody was suggesting that we shouldn't upgrade electrics and toilet facilities were they?

I think we're probably lucky in that our house is south facing and has only four really big rooms (there's a small extension with kitchen and bathroom). It's light and bright and airy which adds to the reasons why I love it so much. We have our plans for it that will probably turn it into the sort of living space it used to be...not because we are trying to recreate history but because it's the right layout to make best use of the space. Fortunately the toilet will stay in the bathroom :wink:

I'm a firm believer that for a house to be standing for over 100yrs the builders must have known a thing or two about correct construction practice. How many modern buildings will still be around in years to come? I'm guessing none - at least not in the same structurally sound state that a lot of historic buildings are in.

Several modern builders have told us to install a chemical DPC and cement render the walls, covered with waterproof paint. I can't help but think if we did that there would be no walls in another 100yrs.

Some things are a matter of taste like dado rails, picture rails, choice of fireplace and I think each to their own in that case but I get very angered when I look at the 'upgrades' that have been made to our house and see the damage that has been done because the previous owner followed modern building conventions.

 

[Nigel Watts]

I think it is possible to establish some ground rules.

Whilst paint colours or wallpaper designs may be a matter of taste and fashion, careful attention should be paid to more structural details.

Most pre-20th century houses, other than perhaps the humblest cottages, have detailing which follows a sometimes highly elaborate hierarchy. The thickness of doors, the presence or absence of mouldings, the width of floorboards, the height of skirtings the degree of elaboration of cornices and other mouldings will often vary from room to room to reflect the social hierarchy.

The main living rooms and perhaps the main bedroom will be the most elaborate. Childrens' and guests' rooms rather less so, and servants' rooms (most middle class households would have had one or more) would have been very plain. When carpentry was done by hand this would no doubt have been partly to do with keeping costs down.

The temptation can exist in renovation projects to introduce more uniform detailing than previously existed, and to "sex up" the detailing in the plainer rooms. This is a mistake, and house will loose something. When original detailing is missing one needs to think very carefully before replacing it of the place that room would have had in the hierarchy, and what would be suitable.

 

[MdB]

The temptation can exist in renovation projects to introduce more uniform detailing than previously existed, and to "sex up" the detailing in the plainer rooms. This is a mistake, and house will loose something. When original detailing is missing one needs to think very carefully before replacing it of the place that room would have had in the hierarchy, and what would be suitable.

Why is this a mistake? Why can't the current owner add detailing the way that they want it? Sure it may not be historically accurate but as long as it is reversible (which most detailing would be), I don't see that this sort of change would be a problem. The features and details originally in the room would have depended on the original persons tastes and finances. Why can't the current owner do exactly the same?

I guess the answer to this depends on the definition of "renovation". If the aim is to return the room to its original glory then you don't want to add additional features which weren't there originally. If however, the aim is to make a home, then I don't see a problem with adding features if that is what you want.

 

[Flyfisher]

Some things are a matter of taste like dado rails, picture rails, choice of fireplace and I think each to their own in that case but I get very angered when I look at the 'upgrades' that have been made to our house and see the damage that has been done because the previous owner followed modern building conventions.

Our 1550 timber-frame house has been extensively 'made over', with many of the original oak mullion windows either removed or covered up. Fitting of the larger, replacement windows involved cutting out parts of the original timber frame. The original remaining beams were either plastered over (walls) or boxed in (ceilings). Oh, and the original thatched roof was replaced with tiles.

These days, such a makeover would be widely condemned, but ours was done a couple of hundred years ago and today is deemed to be G2*. I suspect that fashionable property makeovers are as old as property itself.

 

[JMartin]

Our 1550 timber-frame house has been extensively 'made over', with many of the original oak mullion windows either removed or covered up. Fitting of the larger, replacement windows involved cutting out parts of the original timber frame.

We too lost our mullions and sash windows. The result was a very expensive crack through the middle of a sandstone lintel. The bricks above had caved into the crack that had been carelessly left by the double glazing company. I'm sure the previous owner had no idea the trouble that would have been caused by not having them fix it, or indeed by his choice of windows. We intend to replace the sash windows and mullions when we have some spare cash in the future.

The thing that really annoys me is that we live in a conservation area and have to jump through hoops to be allowed to restore the original features we want. I was told by the planning officer that we would need conservation area consent to re-render (with lime) and to get that we would need to prove it would look the same as the existing (cement) render...of course it won't and that's the point...lunacy!

 

[Penners]

I've been trying to think of something intelligent and pithy to add to this thread.

But I don't do intelligent, and I'm not pithed.

Ho hum

 

[alice]

...I'm not pithed.

Another pint or two should take care of that.

Anyway... agonizing over whether to add a bit of historically-correct bling is very 21st century isn't it? I imagine that our Victorian ancestors would die laughing if someone suggested that adding a more elaborate crown moulding would be out of character for a nursery or servant's room. They would say if it's not a servant's room anymore, then why not? Certainly in the history of man, we must be the first humans to consider putting in obsolete fixtures (stoves, loos, etc) because we think it "goes" with the house.

I think an eye to appropriate scale is more important than sticking to the original intent of the room when choosing mouldings, wallpaper, fire surrounds, etc.

alice

 

[Nemesis]

Think William Morris.

 

[alice]

Good Lord, woman, don't you sleep! It's 1:30am!

William Morris was certainly devoted to bringing back the glories of years past, not only for aesthetics but for his Socialist ideals. He felt that the England of the middle ages was more equitable, kinder, more honest place to live for the average man. He glorified craftsmen and craftsmenship, but still liked his mod cons. He loved the medieval era, but in spirit only. He didn't throw his slops out the window.

To me, old houses are almost living things. They grow and change in response to the people that live in them. Rooms are added, decoration is changed and fundementals are upgraded. I think that when decisions are made on upgrading and rehabing it's a fine balance between honoring the spirit of a period house and creating a place to live that's part of the present.

alice

 

[Nemesis]

Actually, it wasn't 1.30 when I posted.

According to the time on the post as seen from my computer it was 11.28.

Yours says 12.42.

If I am not logged in the times display an hour earlier than if I am logged in.


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