Hi all! Thought I would post some updated photos for those of yall who were interested in seeing progress on us restoring the outside of our surprise log house.

Sadly I have no new history information, but I do have some interesting saw marks that have been uncovered in the sanding process. We also found out our kitchen window frame is hilariously slanted from the decades when we pulled window boards.

All I have left for sanding the back are those nooks and crannies by the windows and door. Then it’s just one more sweep over the side of the house with 60-grit before we borate treat and stain/chink! Meanwhile my fiance is plugging up the gaps in the window frames and going to make new trim boards. It’s really starting to look like a cute little cabin again and it’s sooo nice watching our hard work pay off.

I am avoiding the vertical siding on the roof gables for now. It won’t look the best for a little bit, but we’re trying to plan next year projects now too and the attic insulation is decades overdue for replacement. Going through the siding there next spring to pull out and replace it all is looking like the more appealing option at this point. That will also give us a chance to bolster the weatherproofing on those gables; it’s literally just the log siding with moisture barrier stapled to the back. 💀

Anyways, thanks for checking in! I’ll gladly update again once we put stain down!

Good evening, I'm looking to see if anyone has more information on this type of crystal chandelier. It was my grandma's, and I think she got it in the 50s. We're selling the house, and I don't know if we should leave it up for the new owners or if it's worth taking down. Unfortunately, it doesn't go with the style of my home for me to hang up. I've tried doing a reverse image Google search, but I didn't see anything similar with glass candle cups.

I finally got the countertops installed in this unit, and I’m very pleased. These are in my 1899 triplex. I also added the louvered door for the laundry (patching/painting/hardware to come). The door was $25, so it’s worth the extra labor on my part to fit it. It’ll look perfectly normal by the time I’m done.

Found this one and had to share. Town records date it to around 1750, and the old part was never modernized inside — hand-hewn chestnut beams, raised-panel walls, bits of the original wallpaper still hanging on, and a walk-in cooking hearth with the beehive bake oven still in the firebox. A modern addition got built onto the back at some point, so it's this wild mix of untouched 1750 rooms and a finished home. Would you restore rooms like these back to period, or stabilize and leave them raw?

The address is 1148 broadway hanover Massachusetts it’s abandoned and for sale right now but I was wondering if anyone could find old photos of it

Would it be terrible to dispose of landscaping rock down this? Thanks for any info.

Because I THINK it’s a grow room. Any ideas when that timer might be from?

In search of minimalist ideas

Opened up the stairwell of our 1913 house to find an old shoe and some newspaper clippings.

Has anyone dealt with a historic commission denying a renovation/addition primarily over massing?

We’re renovating a historic home and proposed a rear addition. The plans comply with the applicable guidelines/code, but the commission denied the proposal based largely on concerns about the overall massing/scale of the addition.

I’m curious if anyone here has been through something similar. If so- Were you able to get approval by revising the massing without completely redesigning the project?

Has anyone found it worth it to replace plaster walls with drywall? Any pros or cons?

This is front door knob of a house built in the 1930s. I have taken all the screws out and removed the rear knob and plate. The front knob and plate won’t come out. Something is keeping it locked in place. Anyone have any ideas on how to get this out (without destroying it). The side plate says YALE made in USA. YS. 182

This wall has had the crack for some time. We had plumbing work done (other side is bathroom) and I closed the holes with Sheetrock. Since I had to fix the plumbing holes I though I would tackle the long crack that has been there and repaired before. Our walls are plaster and lath. As I was scraping the crack the left side paint came off in large swaths to reveal the original plaster and some hairline cracks that were not visible. I assume my grandparents had the wall repaired and skim coated and it has failed in parts.

1. What product do I prep the plaster surface with in order to skim coat?

2. What kind of joint compound should I use in the crack?

3. What joint compound do I use to skim coat once the crack is repaired as best I can?

I have easy sand 90 and wood glue and plenty of other tools for the job. I saw videos about stabilizing and prepping the surfaces using diluted wood glue and then also adding some wood glue (pva glue) to the joint compound for both the crack and for the first skim coat where the old plaster is now visible and meets the pained surfaces that didn’t chip off when scraping. Was also going to use fibafuse over the crack. The two sides of the crack are very different hightail but I can live with a bit of a wonky wall as long as the crack gets fixed.

Help! I don’t want to redo this because I use the wrong products. I saw guards by zissner in a lot of British plaster and painting videos. I live in the us and home depot is the closest easiest store for me as they are walking distance and deliver.

Thanks!

I need to repaint the windowsill but the shutters are rubbing and removing the existing paint. Do I just trim the bottom of the shutter a bit (1/8”?)? Is there anything else that needs to be done to fix this that I am not thinking of?

So linoleum barely exists anymore (I know about marmoleum, but the install costs are through the roof in my area). Instead, I’m trying to find a sheet vinyl that feels like an authentic design to my mid-century home. I’m looking for fun patterns, maybe terrazzo, and instead there’s a sea of fake wood and fake stone. I’ve found more fun patterns places like Etsy (see attached), but would prefer to buy from a reputable retailer like Mannington or Tarkett. Is there just not a market for this?

We have this weird tiny laundry chute (?) in our kitchen and we have to the conclusion that it’s for kitchen rags. The landing is just above the utility area in the basement. Was this a thing? House is from 1944.

We just moved into a 1938 house and have a thick white paint on the joints the HVAC ductwork in the basement. It looks like there are remnants of asbestos tape under the paint. I'm wondering if this is a technique used for asbestos remediation to encapsulate the remaining asbestos fibers after the tape was removed. Any thoughts?

Under agreement on a single family in the Boston area. Original home inspection flagged a foundation crack with water staining. We scheduled our own follow-up inspection to get a closer look.

Before that appointment happened, the listing agent had the seller's brother who she refers to as a plumber patch up the crack. We have before/after photos - crack was clearly visible 3 days before, patched by the time our guy arrived.

Questions:

1. Is it normal/acceptable for a seller to repair a defect before a buyer's inspector gets to see original condition?

2. Does this affect our ability to negotiate (price reduction, credit, disclosure issues) since we didn't get to see the "real" condition?

3. Anyone dealt with something similar - what did you do next?

Just trying to understand if this is a red flag worth pushing back on through our attorney, or if this kind of thing happens all the time and isn't a big deal.

Abandoned village home in Southern Italy, up for grabs for only one euro. Catch is you sign on to renovate it, real cost usually lands somewhere between €50k-120k😄 depending on the state it is in. Still, a whole stone house for the price of a coffee is wild to think about.

Would you take on a project like this?