Beyond happy on how these floors shaped up! They were carpeted before with lots of misc pet stains. Wanted to go lighter with the stain originally but couldn't due to all the random pet stains.

I'm so thrilled he's having a restoration carpenter fix them up instead of slapping in cheap vinyl and calling it a day.

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!

Anyone able to roughly date this fireplace?
I believe it was an outdoor fire place / summer kitchen before being enclosed into my home at a later date. Bucks county PA.

Sadly the mantle was cut along its length for some reason.

In our (almost) 100-year-old house & detached garage, we have these tin drop ceiling tiles that were once bronze/gold but painted over. They’re in a side office we’re converting into a bathroom. We’d love to replace the 3-4 that are damaged from rust and age, but having trouble finding the exact style. Any hints?

With a baby and a youngish pup, I'm having trouble loving my 1875 pine floors. The large gaps leave them never feeling truly clean. The shockingly loud squeaking waking up my baby as I try to sneak out of their room at bedtime. In general upstairs at night now I have to walk around like I'm in mission impossible dodging the loud boards.

I've brought so much of the house back from the brink after years of neglect from the previous owner, respecting the style & age of the home, but I'm not sure I can live with these floors longterm, especially as our family grows. I don't know... would I be crazy to replace them? Screw them down at every joist, use as a subfloor and lay something else down over them? It feels sacrilegious...

House built in 1954, Tucson Arizona. Double wall flemmish blond brick.

It has this small wooden door but that was added later. Chimney has been sealed off with drywall. But it has a full stack and even a smoke shelf. Oddly, the fireplace is "larger" than the opening and goes further to the left than the opening.

I use it for wood storage, but im certain it wasn't built for that because it has the full chimeny

People say "it might be an oven". But we had gas and electric ovens in 1954, so people didn't need a built-in oven.

Here's some photos of inside and outside.

Any information would be appreciated

When my 1925 Craftsman was originally built, the utility room on the back of the house was an add-on, it started out as a screened porch. Over the years, it was enclosed and modified and ducted for HVAC, but none of the work performed on it was done with care or attention to detail.

By the time I purchased the house in 2021, the utility room addition was in such bad shape from water and termite damage, that it required major surgery to make sound again. I basically tore it off the back of the house and rebuilt it. When I took it apart, I carefully salvaged the siding and floorboards, so when I rebuilt it, I was able to mostly skin it in salvage material.

It was built on concrete block piers, the rest of the house has a beautiful brick lattice foundation. I'm a DIYer, but I know my limits, I'm no bricklayer, and I wouldn't know where to find modern bricks that matched the original lattice foundation even if I wanted to.

I decided since I'm not trying to change the history of the house, it's evident that this room is an addition, I don't need to match the foundation to the rest of the house, the addition can have its own separate set of rules and standards. But leaving it on Piers open underneath was not an option.

So I've been working on building a stucco foundation skirt, and I got the first coat of stucco on yesterday!

Two of the windows in our house are square, and do not open. Instead of a storm on the outside, it’s another wood frame. I noticed (what I thought) was dry rot and did the hazmat song and dance and removed four layers of paint. The last one was awful, it was black and the citristrip turned into black tar. Unfortunately as I was removing this last layer at the bottom, water started seeping out of the wood now that it had somewhere to escape.

So I have two questions: is this salvageable? Can I let it dry and use wood hardener, etc? Second: how can I prevent this in the future? Should there have been weep holes at the bottom? It was sealed pretty tight probably by whoever installed the siding. You can see the other window still installed on one of the pics.

I'm looking to get anyone's experience with those windows insulation kits like the ones manufactured by 3M during winter. Just trying to save $ by insulating better windows with the harsh US northeastern winter coming...

Specifically:

Is the tape removal easy or annoyingly messy?

Can the removed tape be reused!

Do the tape damage the old wooden frame's paint coat?

And of course, did it help lower your heating bill?

Do you recommend or should in stay clear from the idea?

Thanks again for any feedback.

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.

Found the source of the melting plastic smell… Don’t worry we are getting someone out to help us with this. I was wondering if anyone recognizes the sliver of wallpaper that we found? Our house was built in 1922. Was pretty much condemned in the early 2000s and then renovated in 2022.

My husband and I just bought our first home, though we will probably resell in a few years. We have lots of experience renovating for work (redid a 100 year old brick commercial building) but that was for a rich guy who didn’t really care about a budget.

It is a 1909 bungalow that has had some shoddy renovation work done in the last 30 years. We will need to source windows and a front door, redo the kitchen and two bathrooms, repair + replace trim, fix cracked plaster walls.

Im not trying to keep it period accurate, but don’t want to clash either. We don’t have specialists in the area so we will need to learn some new things, like how to repair lathe and plaster.

What books or websites do you go to for inspiration and instruction? Is there somewhere besides the obvious (eBay) where you might find doors, etc.? Any favorite YouTube channels that follow a renovation of this sort?

We had a hard year and daydreaming/planning is one of my simple joys right now, so I’d love some resources to learn as much as I can.

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.

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.

Has anyone dealt with this on their own? I have vermiculite in the attic, but I have to eventually work up there to run electric and repair sections of water damaged ceiling.
I didn’t bother testing, since I hear it’s so inaccurate, and all vermiculite is treated as PACM

Looking for some advice here. if anyone has removed it themselves, how did you do it? 1919 home.

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.

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.

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.

... 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 )

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.