Pictures don’t always tell the full story behind what it means to own, restore—and perpetually maintain—an old house. Like most of our readers, OHJ staff members have restored key features and remodeled kitchens and bathrooms as money and time permit. To me, overcoming problems on the way to creating beautiful or at least useful spaces is perhaps the most exhilarating part of restoration. I say that as I embark on my summer project: stripping multiple layers of cakedon paint from the floor of a large, screened-in porch.
For others of us, it was adapting the design of a mid-1800s beadboard sink cabinet into a seacoast kitchen remodel … or choosing a much-loved wallpaper for a tiny powder room. I’d almost rather have a problem that requires professional assistance to address; an example is the sudden incursion of water in the buried oil tank that I knew could be an issue one day. While there are so many stories we could tell, we’ve chosen the best (worst?) from only our current houses.
“Why do you buy these pathetic old houses?!”
—patty’s mom, 1992
Among many desecrations, the front porch had been torn off and the main staircase removed. I knew what it must
