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Home Improvement Analysis, Restoration or Modernization/Renovation?
By arlene | November 30, 2008
One of the first decisions you are going to have to make when you take possession of your home is whether you are going to restore it or modernize it. This will determine your outlay on renovations and will depend entirely on the house. Does it have sufficient character, is its design suitable, does it have enough features worth saving, does it deserve to be brought back to what it was when it was originally built – or would it be better stripped to a shell and given a modern facelift?
The features to look for are those no longer used in modern buildings, either because of the expense or difficulty in incorporating them. Among these are suspended wooden floors – almost unheard of in new houses because concrete and carpets are simply cheaper – large, shuttered sash windows which also went out of fashion but are infinitely suited to climate, big fireplaces with wooden or marble mantlepieces, delightfully ornate pressed steel ceilings which are now virtually unobtainable, carved wooden door frames and doors which could be lurking under several coats of gloss oil paint and exotic hardwood staircases and bannisters.
Almost any wooden floor can be restored very easily with a sanding machine either by a professional floor sander or a do-it-yourselfer with a hired machine. Under the blackest layer of old polish and varnish lies a surprise of golden-hued Oregon pine, Baltic deal, teak or, if you are lucky, priceless oak or Cape yellowwood. Although the trend has, for many years, been to hide floors under wall-to-wall carpets, wood is now right back in fashion and there is little to beat the warm glow of a sanded floor, sealed with a good polyurethane-based floor sealer or yacht varnish.
While the drift in home decorating fashion is back to natural textures and fabrics, paint is taking the backseat to wood tones and the joinery in an old house alone might be a reason to go for restoration rather than modernization. Doors, door frames, windows and skirting boards will usually be covered with paint – a hangover from another fashion when all woodwork had to be white or a colour in contrast to the walls. But paint is a protector of wood and careful stripping can bring it right back to its original beauty.
Stripping wood is enormously rewarding but it is also hard, time consuming work. It is one of the renovation jobs you should do yourself without being in a hurry to see results. Because it is so labour intensive, a contractor will probably charge you a sum in excess of the value of the work. In fact it would be nearly as cheap to replace your joinery than to pay someone else to strip it for you. Liquid paint stripper, obtainable from any hardware store, or a lightweight burner which works off an ordinary disposable camping gas container, are both easy to use.
Once the wood is clean, it should be sanded lightly and sealed with a polyurethane sealer, which lasts forever, or an oil. Raw linseed oil provides a good protection for wood but should be mixed half-and-half with turpentine to prevent stickiness and darkening. Speciality hardware shops also sell furniture oils and waxes based on old pioneer recipes which can be used to feed and seal old wood with great effect. Oil sealers must, however, be re-applied from time to time.
Once you have decided to restore, stick to your decision. It is no good retaining, for instance, a Victorian façade, complete with filigree ironwork and a six-panelled front door, then spoiling the whole effect by replacing the old sashes with metal windows.
However, if your house does not have much architectural merit and is lacking features of any note, total modernization is likely to be easier and cheaper. It also gives you the advantage of being able to use modern, easily obtainable materials and to follow the latest interior decorating trends. A complete modernization job would probably involve ripping out old floors, ceilings, cornices and skirtings, filling in with concrete, skimming walls and ceilings to create uniform clean, square lines and replacing old windows with large expanses of glass. There are almost no limits to what you can do with a house if you are not committed to retaining its original character, and some of the most sophisticated up-to-date homes are to be found in the oldest streets – frequently the result of a combination of a rundown bargain and human ingenuity. An archway can transform two pokey rooms into a large, elegant living area. A cleverly located window above eye-level to conserve wall space, or a fanlight, can flood the darkest room with sunshine. A sliding door onto the tiniest garden can double the size of a room. A huge, cold room can be made cozy in a variety of ways — the possibilities are endless.
But before you take out your sledgehammer and start knocking walls down, make sure you are not contravening any building regulations, that your house will not collapse and that what you envisage will turn out the way you want it to. Unless you have plenty of experience, the only way to be really sure that your alterations will work, that you are not endangering the structure of your building and that you are complying in every way with the regulations, is to consult an architect and work strictly to his advice and plans.
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Topics: Contract, Development, Investment, Job, Residential | 5 Comments »
December 2nd, 2008 at 6:27 pm
We are in the middle of renovating our 1950’s bungalow and are having a great time modernizing it.
We would love to have found hardwood floors under the dirty old carpet but instead only found glue covered plywood. The option that we are taking for the flooring is laying down a floating wood laminate floor to get the effect of wood but not at the price or work to install and cost involved.
We also took out one wall between the living room and kitchen to create one very large room which has created a beautiful space.
Before we took the sledgehammer to the wall we had two contractors come in and give us an opinion as to whether it was safe to do or not. Sometimes two professionals have different ideas or perceptions when it comes to safety but they both agreed this time thankfully.
If you are considering taking out any walls I would suggest getting at least two professional opinions just to be safe.
Cheers,
Robin
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