Last week I showed you how we started transforming an old garage into a tiny guest house. This week I’ll tell you about some more of the details of getting this tiny house ready for visitors. This week’s post is a bit more building science as I share about sheathing, insulation and floors. Next week [...] Read on →
Tiny houses have recently become a huge grassroots movement focused on scaling back our cluttered lives and living more simply. Quality over quantity is the theme of the movement, and I’m a big proponent of that. Over the next few weeks I’m going to share an exciting project we’ve just finished here in Orlando. I’ll [...] Read on →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
Occasionally, I use terms on this blog some of my readers may not understand. I recently mentioned “first-rung” neighborhoods in a post and got some comments about what on earth they were. So, for everyone else who didn’t know but didn’t ask, here is your answer. How Cities Grow When areas are first settled there’s [...] Read on →
I have a lot of friends and clients whose homes fall into something I like to call the Historical Cusp. They don’t live in a house of any particular historical significance, and it’s not quite old enough to have been built by hand with non-standardized materials. But it still maintains some of the characteristics I [...] Read on →
Lately, I have been drooling over the idea of building myself a Tiny House. It may seem like a stretch for a guy who talks constantly about old houses to want to build a new one, but a Tiny House has plenty in common with a historic home. I’ve been talking with Alex Pino at [...] Read on →
I’ve got a fun reclaimed wood project for you today that we recently made for a local winery. They wanted a rustic, natural wood feel for their tasting room that was soon to open near downtown Orlando. You can check out the winery at www.quantumleapwinery.com So, here’s what we did . . .
Drywall is dead. Long live drywall. I can’t say that I’ll miss him (I’m assuming drywall is a him), but he seemed nice enough. Faster than a three-coat old-fashioned plaster job and less expensive to boot. But there has always been something about him I just couldn’t put my finger on. Something about drywall that [...] Read on →
Linoleum and vinyl. Vinyl and linoleum. If you’re like most people you might think they are the same thing. But in reality they could not be more different. They two very different products from two very different times. Each one has its advantages but only one of them rightfully belongs in a historic home. Do [...] Read on →