Our First Home - 1934 Semi Detached House

[rgh-key]

Hello All,

Wondering if anyone knows what causes this type of brick deterioration, oddly it’s only on a few select bricks. It’s a 1930s Semi Detached, Ive checked the rest of the Houses on the road and most have a similar patina to the bricks. Anyone else have this?

 

[mardinor]

Just the wonderful patina of age. Cherish it.

 

[rgh-key]

Just the wonderful patina of age. Cherish it.

Thanks for the reply Mardinor, it’s a beautiful house, completely out of my depth with it so working out what could be potential problems moving forward, planning on doing a post documenting progress on it, not sure how well it will be received on here but would be nice to document how it looked, keeping all original doors and features love the design of 30s builds

 

[mardinor]

Glad you appreciate the design and congratulations on your first home.
To rudely offer unsolicited advice, I can save you time by summarising the collective wisdom of this entire forum as follows:
1) Don’t panic - the house has survived nearly a century.
2) Procrastinate - often the best course of action is to pause, see what happens, then put it off.
3) Avoid tradespeople - they do it fast but wrong; learn to do it yourself properly or leave alone

 

[Feltwell]

The occasional brick was fired in a slightly cooler part of the kiln when it was made, so the face is a little softer than those around it and it's weathered more. Absolutely nothing to worry about, no need to do anything, just the lovely effect of age as Mardinor rightly says.

Nothing wrong with a 1930's house, if you've found one that has been unmolested and has all it's original joinery then cherish it, so many will have had it all ripped out by now

 

[ThornhillMike]

Glad you appreciate the design and congratulations on your first home.
To rudely offer unsolicited advice, I can save you time by summarising the collective wisdom of this entire forum as follows:
1) Don’t panic - the house has survived nearly a century.
2) Procrastinate - often the best course of action is to pause, see what happens, then put it off.
3) Avoid tradespeople - they do it fast but wrong; learn to do it yourself properly or leave alone

What wonderful advice. As someone about to embark on 3-4 year restoration programme on an 1840's property, sadly sat empty and neglected for a number of years, this is a heartening reminder...

 

[rgh-key]

The occasional brick was fired in a slightly cooler part of the kiln when it was made, so the face is a little softer than those around it and it's weathered more. Absolutely nothing to worry about, no need to do anything, just the lovely effect of age as Mardinor rightly says.

Nothing wrong with a 1930's house, if you've found one that has been unmolested and has all it's original joinery then cherish it, so many will have had it all ripped out by now

Thanks for your reply, we are fairly lucky, it has all the original doors, stairs and flooring, most in this area have had all of the character removed and replaced with modern materials so that they look like new build properties, not what we are going for at all, a few photos attached:

 

[Stevers]

Following on from your hall photo this is what our hall looked like in 1997 when we bought the house:

It's all pine scumble grained to look like oak, and all the hall and landing doors and the panelling enclosing the basement stairs have versions of it. The house was built in 1879, and there is plenty of original joinery that has never been stripped. What always intrigues me is that there are four or five layers of paint before any scumbling is encountered and these early paint layers include deep greens, torquoise blues, mid and chocolate browns, pinkish stones and yellowish creams. Based on a decorating cycle of ten years, that suggests to me that scumbling only appeared from the 1920's onwards. Anyway the runners, lino and dreadful wall paper in this picture all constitute a very 1930's look to me!

The wonderful oak graining was retained, to which I have contributed quite a lot of my own, and cannot imagine it any other way. If you strip those internal doors, be aware that the panels are likely to be plywood. If they get too hot the glue may release and you will get bubbles as my late father found in his house also built in 1934.

 

[Cubist]

be aware that the panels are likely to be plywood. If they get too hot the glue may release and you will get bubbles as my late father found in his house also built in 1934.

Good tip and well worthy of note.