Lost History

I stumbled upon this memoriam yesterday.

William Robertson was the son of the third owners of the house. We'd had some contact with him via email a few years ago, but unfortunately never had the chance to meet face-to-face.

He was acquainted with the grandson of the first owner, who kindly made the connection for us, and he shared some of his knowledge of the house with us (Fire in the Attic).

Listen

In another recent conversation with someone who was in the process of purchasing an old house, they asked, "What should I do first?"

It's typical that as a new owner you're full of energy to get started on something. I'd suggest getting the house weather tight and address any immediate structural issues. Otherwise, temper your enthusiasm and wait. Maybe for as long as a year. It's an old house; once it's weather tight another 12 months isn't a big deal.

Listen to the house.

Let it speak to you.

You will learn what it needs. It may need different things in each of the four seasons.

You will learn how you live in it. And how you'll adapt to it. Along with how it will adapt to you.

Things that you think you want to do on day one likely will not be the things you want/need on day 365. You will also figure out more about what it needs and how to structure/schedule the work so you don't have to re-do things later.

If it is a historic house you are a caretaker for future generations, not an owner.

Thoughtful Restovation

I was chatting with an acquaintance recently and, not surprisingly, the topic of the house came up. Project progress and whether we're done yet are the most common conversation starters. He didn't ask this, but every once in a while someone will ask when we're going to sell and do it again. Judging by the amount of time we've taken so far, we're obviously not in it for a "quick flip".

As you might expect, quick flippers and some  of the popular TV shows about old houses aren't terribly popular on old house websites. Mostly those sites are populated with people who have a passion for preserving old houses and their criticism is of the "remuddling" decisions that run counter to the design ethos of old houses or work that destroys the house's character.

As we prepare for the upcoming tour I've thought a bit about our approach to our house. I'd classify it as thoughtful restovation (restoration and renovation) of a historic building.

Where it makes sense, we've restored things and found period pieces of hardware to replace broken or missing pieces. If that's not possible, we've sometimes found appropriate reproductions. We've also tried to keep with the style of the house and used period colors in many cases. That doesn't mean we're fanatics about originality however.

In other cases, we've renovated using modern materials, etc. In those cases we carefully considered the house and the modern way of living. We've tried to stay in harmony with the style of the house, borrowing original design cues from elsewhere in the house while understanding that it's not a museum or a time capsule, but rather a house in which a family lives.

So far, we've received a lot of good feedback that we've successfully balanced the competing forces.

Art

Now that the hallways are done, the art gallery can begin.

It will be a process, like any other.

The first piece we hung is called "Carriage Houses of Saint Paul - II". Our carriage house is one of those featured in the collection. This is the second in a series of photographs of carriage houses in Saint Paul.

We originally met the artist as he was creating this piece. He was riding his bike around Saint Paul looking for interesting carriage houses to photograph and he stopped by our place.