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Feinmann, Inc.

Feinmann, Inc.

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Historic Home Renovation: Key Tips and Considerations

February 1, 2023

Are you considering undergoing a historic home renovation? If so, setting yourself up for success before renovating your home is essential. Historic home renovations can take a lot of time, money, and resources, so it’s critical to carefully consider your options before getting started. Let’s discuss historic renovation considerations, and look at some beautiful projects guaranteed to inspire you.

What You Need to Consider Before Starting a Historic Renovation

Renovating a historic home requires a delicate balance. On the one hand, you want to preserve the home’s traditional charm, but on the other hand, you want to optimize the building for modernity and comfort. Let’s delve into the key considerations to assess before starting your historic home renovation:

Historic District Home Renovations

Is your home in a historic district? If so, your renovation must first gain approval from local architectural review boards. In this scenario, you must pay meticulous attention to project planning. Furthermore, more costly, true-to-era materials may be required for the renovation.

Return on Investment

If your main goal is return on investment (ROI), keep in mind that poorly restored houses may not retain their value. If you plan to achieve a healthy ROI, consider consulting with experts to keep some of the property’s original value unchanged.

Professional Consultation

If you want to maximize ROI, keep costs down, and avoid common pitfalls, consider hiring professionals to do the job. Professionals can help you navigate architectural review boards and find or recreate antique materials.

Prepare for Surprises

Older homes almost always come packed with hidden surprises you will discover once you start digging in. For example, structural damage can occur in warm, wet climates, resulting in termite infestations. On a more positive note, good surprises are also often unearthed. You may discover elements such as original wood floors when pulling up tiles.

Historical Home Renovation Tips

Navigation your historic home renovation will become a whole lot easier when you incorporate the following tips into your process:

Inspections

Before you undergo the renovation, consider hiring an inspector experienced in old architecture. The inspector can point out potential roadblocks such as ductwork, wood rot, and any existing masonry issues.

Foundation and structure

When renovating a historic property, structural and foundational issues often arise. For example, if the house is leaning or there are cracks in the walls, doors, or ceilings, it’s time to get an expert opinion. Fixing structural issues is often expensive and time-consuming. Therefore, it’s important to know what you’re getting yourself into and factor repairs into your overall renovation budget.

Flooding and leaks

Flooding and leaks are common in historic properties and can cause many problems, such as water stains, rotten wood, or dry rot. To assess whether this will be an issue, examine under your home’s roof, on window sills, along baseboards, and around ductwork.

Energy inefficiencies

An expensive component of a historic renovation is often an energy consideration. You may need to replace the home’s furnace, windows, and insulation.

Windows and doors

Historically built windows and doors often require an architectural specialist for renovation to make them compliant with modern energy codes.

Insulation

Apart from soaring energy bills, poorly installed insulation can result in severe property damage due to water condensation. Furthermore, unchecked moisture can result in mold and bacterial growth, which attracts termites. Poor insulation is a recipe for disaster, accelerating rot and decay of organic matter, such as wood and paper.

HVAC

You will need to ensure your property’s ductwork is insulated and sealed and that the mechanical unit correctly fits the space. An oversized unit won’t cycle frequently enough to remove moisture from the air, resulting in condensation around doors, ducts, windows, walls, and ceilings.

Electric

Older electrical systems only sometimes come equipped with sufficient panel circuits, which may cause issues installing a more modern system. Ensure you understand enough information about the current electrical system to prevent potential malfunctions.

Plumbing

Plumbing is another critical consideration of historical buildings that you must consider in your overall budget. To check if the existing plumbing is adequate, check if the shower drains quickly and maintains pressure when the toilet flushes.

Plaster

You don’t necessarily need to replace plaster. Instead, you can repair it. The easiest method is to gut the house down to the studs, run all new wires and pipes, and then put up drywall.

Historic Home Renovation Before And After

Here at Feinmann, our team has undergone many successful historical home renovations. Explore some of our projects below:

1890s Renovation
1890s Renovation

The homeowners asked Feinmann to restore the façade of their 1896 Victorian house to its original condition. The client provided hand-architectural drawings, which our team used as a “template,” making strategic design changes where necessary for significant cost savings. Some of these changes concerned the bay windows. With the second-floor bay, our team simplified the construction elements but achieved the same character. The porch restorations saw some minor design changes as well. The front porch was only slightly reconfigured – to avoid the expense of an exact replication – but the Feinmann team brought back its original grandeur and scale, the key to the home’s charm. Much of the work on the façade involved the details: brackets and panels, shingle work, moldings to create “ribbon boards,” and molding details to match the house’s original look.

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Victorian Re-Envisioned
Victorian Re-Envisioned

This Queen Anne Victorian was striking in appearance, but inside, the interiors were awkward. The homeowners challenged Feinmann to create a functional, modern living space while preserving the home’s charm. The team’s concept was to wrap the porch around the house, pushing out the existing walls to create an enclosed living area within the extended porch element and renovating the interior to increase the amount of usable space and add flow to the cramped rooms. Wrapping and enclosing the “new” porch allowed the team to open up the dining room and reconfigure the narrow living room to create a larger space. A spacious and bright kitchen with a dramatic octagonal eating area is now the heart of the home. Historically accurate details throughout, including a dramatic gold-veined fireplace surround and fireside inglenook seating, add architectural interest and underscore the home’s original design. <

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Victorian Beauty
Victorian Beauty

Feinmann restored the exterior of an 1885 Victorian home that had deteriorated over the years in Arlington, Massachusetts. Our team revived the home’s original splendor by fixing and improving the front and back porch, Juliet Balconies, shingles, panels, and intricate design elements. The team focused on restoring the porches by repositioning the stairs, reinforcing the brick and wood support posts, installing pressure-treated framing and mahogany decking, and fixing its existing handrails and roof structure. Feinmann then shifted attention to the house’s design details by replacing all the balusters, posts, spindles, and corbels that give the outside its Victorian feel.

Learn More

Conclusion

We hope our essential tips and considerations are helpful when you are undergoing your historic home renovation. If you like any of our historic renovations before and after, reach out to us to learn more about how we can help you achieve your home dreams.

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Why Feinmann for Design-Build?

Read about our design-build service,  process, and what differentiates us from our competitors.

Learn About Design-Build

We loved having entire Feinmann team in our home and appreciated them treating it like it was their own. The work they did is all over-the-top gorgeous. They coached us to select products and finishes that will last a lifetime (and through our toddler), and the craftsmanship with which it was all executed certainly will hold up to time. I admire daily the integration of existing and new, and regret only that in time I’ll likely forget which is which. Feinmann is masterful at what they do. I really can’t say enough nice things about them, and their work.

- Cambridge, MA

From start to finish of the project our ideas were heard and creatively addressed. The quality of the final results are even better than we imagined. Our home feels completely new and we love the improved living space! As far as the team, they are fantastic, personable, timely, has great ideas and always seem to stay calm and in charge, ready to problem solve. The carpenters are a delight to work with and the quality of their carpentry and building skills are impressive, always smiling and offering a “can do” attitude.

- Leveling Up for Grand Entertaining

Feinmann is a top-notch company in every category! We have worked with them on three separate occasions: a complete kitchen remodel (2017), three bathrooms (2016), and a room addition (2011). Working with the Feinmann team was truly a great pleasure! Everyone in the company is committed to quality work, the projects were run proficiently and professionally, they provided the highest quality workmanship, and we always received timely responses to our questions and concerns. My wife and I would consider no-one else for our new project!

- European, Contemporary Kitchen Remodel

We are very happy with the experience we had with Feinmann in what was a pretty extensive remodel. First of all, their design team truly developed a great vision for the house, beyond what we had imagined. Through the remodel, which by its nature is an arduous process (living without a kitchen for a while), the Feinmann team was very collaborative and supportive, managed well and the results have truly transformed our house. We’re extremely happy with the outcome.

- Hosting Haven Meets Artistic Angles

Feinmann took a real interest in building a kitchen that would fit the design of the house and meet our needs. That was when we knew that they were the best choice for us. Anyone can rip out a kitchen and put in some new counters and cabinets, but we wanted someone who cared about design, style, and function.

- White, Waves and Blue Kitchen

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