When you have dozens of coats of paint on trim and woodwork, touching up paint is not always as simple as grabbing a brush and going to town. When old paint chips off, you’re likely left with a crater in the surface. The layers of paint that have built up over the years have made […]
There’s a lot to know about lead paint before you start renovating an old house. Lots more than I can cover in one post and rather than trying to search through years of archives, I thought it would be helpful to create a resource page dedicated to helping you work lead safe in an old […]
I’ve been getting a lot of questions lately about lead paint, so I wanted to try to address some of those questions to make folks feel a little safer in their old homes. If you live in a house built before 1978, you need to know how to test for lead paint, especially if you have […]
Today’s question comes from Jacques: “What would you recommend for plaster walls and wood trim/mouldings on a 90 year old house? My wife and I are planning on having kids, so we’d like to get the house lead free in a safe way.” Jacques, in a 90-year old house you’re not as likely to have lead paint […]
One of my first large scale window restoration jobs was to fully restore all 38 sashes on a 1950s Colonial Revival. I had restored close to 100 old windows by the time this job came around and had gotten pretty good. My glazing putty had nice clean corners and I had developed a pretty good […]
If you own an old house, you have paint problems…somewhere. It may be from a poor paint job at some point or a paint job that is just too old. Keeping your house painted properly, especially the exterior, is imperative to the long term care of your house. Exterior elements deteriorate quickly without a protective […]
In Choosing Exterior Paint Colors For Your Historic House we discussed how to go about picking the right colors for a historic home. Will you choose colors that are historically accurate to your home, historically appropriate for the time period your home was built or will you just wing it and pick your own color […]
With this epic post I’ve compiled nearly 10 years of posts and tutorials on window restoration to give you the ultimate free guide to window restoration on the web. You’ll find tons of videos, tools, and discussion to walk you through the whole process from start to finish.
This week’s Ask The Craftsman question comes from Douglas. “What do you recommend to remove stain from an antique mantle?” Douglas, I’m assuming that we are not talking about pet stains here. Stains from pet urine blacken wood in a way that cannot be removed without replacing the wood. Removing a stained finish from wood […]
Last week I talked about how to properly test for lead paint. While testing for lead paint is an important start, simply knowing if there is lead or not won’t do much to protect you. You need to know how to safely renovate in a house with lead paint. I’ll cover important principles of dust […]
Every year, approximately 200,000 to 300,000 homes are demolished across America. While some losses are inevitable, many could be prevented with one simple practice that most historic homeowners either skip entirely or do incorrectly: proper inspection and maintenance. Unlike modern homes built with standardized materials and techniques, historic homes require a completely different approach to […]
Pressure washing—love it or hate it, it’s here to stay. If you’ve ever stared down at your charming but dirt-caked 1920s bungalow and thought, “A pressure washer can fix that,” you might want to hold up. Sure, blasting away grime can seem like a great idea, but if your house is older than the moon […]
