Maintaining an old house can seem like a full time job at times. Old homes were built with materials and in a manner that requires regular maintenance. While this maintenance requires time it is ultimately a more affordable option than today’s home design of replacement rather than repair. Regular Inspections Regularly inspecting your old house [...] Read on →
How to save 80% on home repairs may sound like a marketing hype gone wild. But anyone who has been a reader of this blog for more than a week will know that that is not my style. I am very serious about that title. What I’m going to share with you today is SO [...] Read on →
This post may be a bit on the math nerd side, but sometimes in construction a math nerd is the one who makes the difference between a building falling down and one that lasts a hundred years. Old houses are notoriously void of right angles. They have shifted and settled over the years and nothing [...] Read on →
Lots of old homes have the mysterious second front door. Some were added in renovations over the years, but others are original. The explanations for these original double doors are all over the map. Many folks finally give up hope of finding an answer to this architectural mystery, but I have some ideas for you. [...] Read on →
Sometimes it’s nail holes and sometimes it’s rotten wood, but your projects will often require you to patch wood. In this post I’ll help you determine the best materials (and there are tons available!) to use when the time comes to patch wood projects. The type of material you should use will depend on what [...] Read on →
I was driving through the suburbs yesterday on the way to a friend’s place when I noticed something that has never really stood out to me before. House after house, street after street I noticed a pattern. The houses in this area were standard 1990s – 2000s stucco behemoths typical in Florida. Aside from being [...] Read on →
The law of supply and demand is a basic economic principle of a free market that goes like this: As demand for an item goes up the price goes up. This attracts new suppliers who increase the supply bringing the price back to normal. The laws of supply and demand are constantly in motion in our economy [...] Read on →
Guest Post by Wade Myer - Wade grew up under the watchful eye his father, a contractor, who taught him the tools of the trade. Even though he can swing a hammer with the best of them, he’s always been drawn to the written word where he can frame sentences rather than walls. Currently he writes [...] Read on →
The title may say, “how to cut antique glass,” but it’s really the same process for any kind of glass you would find in windows or doors. The easy way is to bring your measurements to the local glass shop or hardware store and ask them to do it. They’ll do it perfectly and it [...] Read on →
Whether it’s an errant baseball or a tropical storm, windows are bound to break sometimes. And before you call a window specialist to replace your broken window glass you might just be able to do it yourself. More importantly, if you have an old house your broken window glass will need to be replaced in [...] Read on →
Some of you may not know, but I have just recently released my first eBook. It’s been very exciting for me to put this together. I started with the goal of compiling the most important information that owners of old houses need to know. It’s my way of providing a reference guide for what’s important [...] Read on →
In 2001 I had just returned to New York City from a year in Tokyo performing for Walt Disney. It was a fantastic experience living in a such a different culture and country, but I was happy to be back home in America. The lease had run out on my old apartment and I was [...] Read on →
In the name of progress we have made some pretty dumb “improvements” to the things we use to build a house over the centuries. Some have killed people like asbestos and others are just so atrociously ugly they deserve to die a slow death in a landfill. And the winners of the dumbest building materials [...] Read on →
We do a lot of hardwood floor refinishing at Austin Home Restorations and I often get asked by clients how they should care for their newly refinished wood floors. There is a specific timeline of how to treat and care for a wood floor after it was just refinished. In this post I’ll outline what [...] Read on →