r/Oldhouses

Edit: we will likely do a raised bed garden! Thank you guys for a quick solution, you are the best 🫶

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Hello old house pals! We bought our old home last summer and have been working on bringing her back to life.

There is this very ugly spot on the front that I’d love to beautify in some way. So, I am sharing for some ideas :)

We are willing to break up the concrete, but we have no idea why it was put down so we would have to figure that out. The sewer line is on that side, but it appears the concrete is very surface level. We also had the sewer line inspected last year and it shouldn’t have impact, but if we go that route we will proceed with caution.

We can plant bushes, but we figured we could explore any other ideas while we essentially have a blank canvas here.

Any thoughts?

Homeowner here, trying to learn the finish on my walls before I patch, so the repairs don't stick out. Best I can tell it's a soft stipple/stomp that got lightly knocked down, but I'd rather hear it from people who actually know.

What would you call it, and if you've matched something like this, what did you use? Kind of curious too whether the old-timers did this by hand with a brush. Pics attached.

We recently purchased a lovely 1930’s semi-detached house which is long overdue for a modernisation. Originally in the hallway it was a thick shag carpet, which you can still see in the living room to the left of photo. There were some stains from…something…potentially oil or lubricant which has seeped through to the wood below.

We’re absolutely keeping the floors and will be taking the carpet up in the living room as well which also has the same flooring underneath.

I just thought I’d throw it out to this sub for any tips or suggestions on how to restore it and make it pop :)

Thanks all!

We moved into a newly bought home from 1920 and have so far found 2 active circuits of knob and tube. Not sure of the full extent but our knob and tube has some kind of sheathing or lining on it on it. Anyone familiar with this as I thought it had to be open air to cool? Some of it is going through vermiculite in the attic which I’m getting tested as well but hoping it’s early enough to not have abspestos. Nothing is running to the panel itself and seems to have been left in place mostly for light switches to fixtures in addition to limited outlets.

Golly gosh, it would be great if I could include photos in these posts for the visual. I will do my best to verbally describe what's going on.

In a nutshell - the house has not had any improvements since around 1981. The bathroom was about a quarter finished, but usable.

Fast forward 40ish years. With no maintenance to the bathroom, it was in a state of disrepair.

There had been plans to put in a shower surround 40 years ago, that never transpired. What we used was plastic sheeting, thumbtacked up to the drywall.

window

I gutted the entire tub area, leaving the tub in place. There is a window on the outer wall right in the middle of where the shower surround is. The request was to not remove the window, much to my disappointment.

I have done my very best to make the window area water resistant. There will be a translucent shower curtain that will hang in front of the window, on a curtain rod for additional protection.

This is an awful lot of wordage to get to the final point - I've been using a lot of cove and quarter round molding. Mostly it's been fine, using stainless steel nails to tack into place. But with a couple of spots, since the house is very old and nothing is square, if anything is even remotely bowed, and it doesn't take much, the molding presses against the nails and the molding is starting to pop off.

Can I just use some small stainless steel screws to hold it in place? Or are there better ideas?

my friend just moved into this hold house and we’re wondering what these are for ? maybe curtains? there is also a hook on the bottom of the window frame too

We have a century home and our basement has concrete foundation walls with a concrete floor. Sometimes water comes in through the cracks of the foundation/and or floor if there is heavy rainfall. I believe this is somewhat normal due to hydrostatic pressure. It doesn’t flood, but there is certainly water that sort of collects around the edges of the basement and absorbs into the concrete in the middle of the floor for a little bit and then usually goes away.

The problem is that the previous owner sprayed insulation on the walls in the basement…I think it’s probably more of a hinderance than a help in general and I have no idea why they chose to do this. The worst part is that the outer coating of the insulation is some sort of fuzzy soft material. The inside is yellow foam.

As you can see by my photos, the soft fuzzy material absorbs water, and this allows mold to develop.

I believe this is probably bad mold 😩😩 not that any mold is good… but this one looks particularly concerning.

*this corner looks really dirty because we had shelving in front that we moved

Obviously, I am not going to be able to do anything about the fact that some water comes in sometimes due to hydrostatic pressure, given the age of the home. I am not sure if they sprayed this insulation on the foundation to hide something. It is not a finished basement and if it were just concrete, it would not concern me greatly. However, obviously, the presence of this insulation and mold IS concerning.

What do I do about this? I do not feel comfortable or experienced enough to remove all of the insulation… I thought maybe I could remove the bottom half but that still sounds really daunting. Obviously something needs to be done. Just any advice regarding the insulation, the mold and the situation is welcome. If you are knowledgable on the insulation or why they would have done this, that would help too.

What would you do? Looks like previous owners had carpet runner on stairs and painted exposed areas white. When we purchased the home the stairs had no carpeting.

Thinking about trying to strip and restore vs. Painting to match original stain. Or any other suggestions?

House is a historic home, Queen Anne revival style, built in 1907.

Just discovered this opening in lower wall. Is this vermiculite inside? Wasn’t disclosed when pitching the home. I’ve actually found the same in another area as well.

Built 1794-1809. Stagecoach stop, tavern, county seat, law office. Now our home 🙂

Would love to know if anyone can help me find this wallpaper! This was the original in the living room of our 1920s home, but now only exists in the coat closet!

Peck-Williamson made furnaces. What was the function of this, in the living room baseboard?

Caulk was slowly coming off so I just pulled it ALL off around bottom and black junk and mold just came pouring out( probably why I'm always cleaning mold off ceiling for years now ).. I then pulled off the top white covering and it came down pretty easy but THIS does not look good or smell good and it's only bathroom. I have NO idea what this is or where to begin;( Please help??

Stripper this beast from a thousand layer of paint and applied le Tonkinois French varnish to keep the original and natural bare cast iron look. Really like what I am seeing. Any thoughts? Photos below.

182 sacks of sawdust out, 30 saxka of woodfibre insulation in.

So we have to move fairly quickly for my husband’s job. I found this house and I’m kind of in love with the features. We haven’t found many houses in the area that are in much better condition. We have experience with heavy demo and renovation. The biggest pro with this house is that a.) it’s listed at $65,000 and b.) it’s owned by one of those quick sale companies that bought it a year ago for $20k and have done no work to it so we could possibly drive the price down even more. With the sale of our place we would have between $35-60,000 to spend on renovation and repair. These are the unstaged pictures from the previous sale. The current listing has it staged and all the flooring covered with loose carpet.

It’s 5 bed 2 bath with a sunroom, plus a large workshop out back on nearly half an acre.

Please be absolutely brutally honest with me. I love old houses but I also don’t want to wind up regretting it. I also have the disclosure statements if anyone is interested.

EDIT: I should’ve put this in the original post, but the biggest con to taking on this project is that we currently have a 2 1/2 year-old, and I am due with our second in September.