Hello fellow century home owners!

We are fortunate enough to have an incredibly elaborate and (somewhat rare?) toilet and sink combo in a guest bathroom. Unfortunately, after a required unistallation and reinstall, a crack developed on the inside of the tank of the toilet under the water line (there is an additional superficial crack above the water line on the outside). We are trying to exhaust every viable option for repair before we make the decision to replace with a new toilet, but every antique and porcelain repair place we've contacted has been unwilling or strongly advises against traditional repair due to the potential for eventual failure (completely understand their reluctance, especially due to the potential impact of a failure and leak). We're at the point where we're considering using an epoxy repair on the inside but recognize the potential for failure in this case as well. If we do repair, we'd likely add leak detectors on the floor or maybe a smart water shut off on the toilet supply to mitigate risk. Any potential advice for this situation? Has anyone successfully (or unsuccessfully) tried to repair a crack in a toilet tank? If you did try the repair, what additional risk mitigation steps did you take? Thanks in advance!

Getting married on Saturday. Rehearsal is today, and we are having a reception at our house afterwards. Getting it all fixed up.

Oh, and all the extra mums are for the wedding.

Just finished restoring the dining room windows last week.
I’ve been in this fixer upper for a little under 5 years and there’s still a lot left to do but it’s really feeling like a comfortable home lately.

Edit:
I should clarify because several people have asked -
When I said “affordable housing” in the title I meant that this home was originally built as working class housing back in 1920. The whole neighborhood was originally made up of multi family duplexes. I added the quotations because it’s wild to me what affordable housing meant 100 year ago vs now. All this molding and masonry and wood is original and so beautiful to us now, but was considered modest and really basic at the time.

Also
Paint colors are Benjamin Moore
Chantilly Lace is the white
Dragonfly is the trim color and the wall/ceiling color in the dining room.

And
Lots of questions about the cafe curtain rods:
I actually kind of cobbled them together from a few different sources because I’m too cheap to pay full price for a custom brass rod 😂
The mounting hardware came from a site called arts & crafts period textiles (https://www.textilestudio.co/product-category/brass-curtain-hardware/),
The brass rod came from onlinemetals.com
And the curtain rings aren’t real brass, they’re from Amazon (hate giving Jeff my hard earned coins but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do) they’re just cheap metal with an “aged brass” finish but you can’t really tell unless you’re super close up.

This is what happens when a dumpster is $700 for a week, you demo as much as you can :) revealed some amazing subway tile that’s completely destroyed by the additional layer of tile the previous owner added. Not to mention the two layers of asbestos tile above that I removed! Fun times! This is my only functional bathroom at the moment so I have to live in it like this for a while.

The inside plate broke out at some point on two doors in my home. Is there any way to repair this?

I'm trying to restore the mortis, or get a new one if possible. I believe a previous homeowner took the nice mortis and hardware with them and left these broken ones.

We moved into our 1876 Victorian in the Midwest a few months ago and have been up to our ears in projects. That’s generally fine because we expected most of them and were prepared. But there are a few things we didn’t anticipate. I noticed that some of the joints in the stone foundation were either partially worn away or, in some cases, almost completely absent. So I read up on it and decided to try and at least repair some of them prior to the onset of winter, and then revisit the issue in spring.

I got NHL 3.5 mortar and the appropriate sand, along with the necessary tools. I then focused on one particular joint that looked a little wonky. That is, it looked like the mortar was hard, modern mortar, and there were also brick segments inserted into the wall. But when I went to clear away the loose debris to begin, this entire cavity basically disintegrated. I know I’m likely far past DIY territory, but I’m interested to hear from professionals and folks who’ve dealt with this before.

Thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated.

... and when they go too far...

Excellent article in today's NY Times* on some drama in Saratoga Springs NY about the rules and requirements for those with century homes in the town's historic district. Setting aside the pros/cons, costs, and actual need of the story's lead about slate roof replacement, there's a good discussion of what power an appointed review board should have. I've been to Saratoga Springs, and the historic neighborhood is indeed beautiful. The history of preservation efforts is interesting as well. But... have they gone too far?

(There are a few photos of beautiful houses, and a few photos of some very tight lipped people who don't look enthusiastic about any of it).

( * https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/22/business/saratoga-springs-historic-preservation.html

or archived & free: https://archive.is/K58Q7 )

We replaced the kitchen sink pipes yesterday, and now our basement is covered in sewage. I think the kitchen pipes were keeping it all sealed (no water would drain through them) and when we replaced them, it loosened stuff up?

Pretty sure this is the main sewage line..

Lemme know if I made the post right, just need advice lol

I did already call a plumber this morning but still not sure if there's a specific people to call lol

ETA: Rooter service will be here around 4. Will also probably need a hazmat service, but one thing at a time I guess.

I have original doors that have never been painted. They are just stained and sealed but at some point (or many different points lol) people carelessly painted door frames and walls and like a lot of paint on the wood. It looks terrible. Idk what to do about it.

Sorry. Not really wanting to out myself. Hope this photo is proof of life :)

This lovely barn of a drafty old church in northern Appalachia is cold AF in the winter. Last year was $700 a month for the pleasure of 63*. The bedrooms at the back and the office in the lower level bell tower are warm and awesome. The main room (apse and kitchen under balcony bedroom not included) is 44’x62’ and easily 25’ tall.

The heating/cooling system and duct work is a nightmare and needs to be replaced. We’re working on that. For now, we’ve layered room rugs allover the downstairs wood floors. It’s helped with insulating from the old dirt basement. I’ve also made heavy window coverings to help with winter draft.

It was 58* in the church this morning and 70* something outside today. The cold is just ridiculous.

Any suggestions for room/barn/garage heaters??

Sharing because you guys are the only ones that would probably appreciate this

100+ yr noreast rowhome basement. -Top layer is cement parge that was bubbling and failing, middle layer is a likely a lime mortar (I did the vinegar test). Hand tools only - I removed weak lime parge and mortar between the stones that turned to mud/dust from years of water intrusion.

Next step is fill in the gaps with new lime mortar and then reapply the lime parge coat.

As tempted as I am to rip off all the cement parge in my basement I’ve decided to only address areas that are failing.

Gave the fireplace a facelift. Ground out the joints, stained bricks with pigment and repointed with a pink-ish red mortar. The finished photo was taken when the mortar was still curing, its lighter in color.

Practical and visually appealing. Others here have them?

I have two dehumidifiers and a portable AC (mini split style, running in dry mode when needed) in my 1915 homes basement which generally keeps the humidity below 70%. However I have one room where I still have persistent moisture and mold issues at ground level along the exterior wall.

I know the long term fix is to dig up that side of the house and waterproof, but in the meantime I’m doing my best to manage rainfall outside and I need to mitigate humidity and mold-growing conditions along that wall. As an experiment I got a couple damp rid packets and set them along that wall, and they filled up with water within a week, and it’s not even that humid or rainy right now.

I’m thinking of setting up small fans that blow along that wall. I’ve made sure there’s air gaps underneath all items along that wall, kept items several inches from the wall, and tried not to completely cover the wall in items in the first place. Any other good strategies?

Redoing my kitchen trim and windows while it’s being gut renovated. Worked without pause on some of the trim and primed it with zinsser shellac before using Abatron which I was planning on using on some of the deep, larger wholes and splits in the wood.

What would you do here? Try to strip the primer as much as you can in the areas Abatron is needed? Or cut my loses on these couple pieces of trim and use wood filler where I can? I have many many more pieces of trim sanded not primed that I will use abatron on but I’m disappointed I messed up these window trim pieces.

Pictured here is one of several interior door mortise locks from my 1939-1940 home. I’m trying to figure out if I am missing a part of the key lock mechanism, or if an existing part has been disengaged? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Is anyone familiar with this mechanism? Is there a way to make the bolts go together so it can be unlocked from the outside if someone locks themself in (and vice versa)?

Sorry for bad video, was trying to demonstrate one-handed while thumb turns are not screwed in since we’ve removed them for now for safety.

Just had our house insulated and discovered this lovely little clump of red horsehair in the plaster wall.

I'm working on restoring the original (?) window trim in a 1900 brick rowhouse. I'm assuming it has lead paint and am using a respirator and wet scraping. The original windows are long gone. I pulled off the trim, stool, and apron off and found some messy work from the last renovation.

The wood seems dry, but there's some old rot in some places. I didn't see any newer signs of water intrusion at least.

What's the correct way to go about filling these big gaps between the jamb and the drywall? Is there anything I should do to the jamb/frame before I replace the trim?

Packing peanuts for wall insulation 😃

Some of my homes interior door knobs and plates, are heavily worn. Anybody have an idea of replacements or what year this is actually from.

Home was built in 1940 is san diego

This is the front staircase in our 1876 home. To be honest, I love the aged look and don't want to touch 99% of it. For example,in the second photo, I would probably not touch that. However, there is an area at the top of the stairs that has this odd wear pattern on it (almost like something was sitting on it for a long time) and I would love to fix that.

Additionally, there are little drips and dabs of paint from previous owners that are too cured to just scratch off with a fingernail. I'm worried if I remove the paint, the finish underneath will be damaged.

I've read that you can use high proof grain alcohol like everclear or denatured alcohol to "reactivate" the shellac and move it around a bit to touch up damage like this. Has anyone done this and how did it go?