The Historic District

We have been busy lately removing the tile from the bathroom and kitchen walls. A previous owner must have been into novelty finishes. The bathroom tiles are plastic marble tiles in mint green. They probably went in during the 50's when the second owners took over the house. The kitchen walls are ti...

It's not tile. It's vinyl sheeting with a friable backing that is firmly attached to the floor. I am not removing it myself.

Interesting. Any chance you could shoot me a link to something similar to what you used?

Gothichome, are you talking about engineered hardwood?

Well... You have to know whether or not you are willing to take the risk of working with a hazardous material for the sake of restoration. Our asbestos floor is not something I am willing to take on myself, as I said in my original post. I plan to put in a floating floor to encapsulate the asbestos....

Chris, I respect your experience when it comes to restoration, but this is something I'm just not comfortable doing. Asbestos can be in the vinyl material itself, and it can also be in the mastic. The idea of sanding a floor that had asbestos in the mastic makes me pretty twitchy. For the time being...

Okay, you guys. I am in a bit of a pickle here with our 1916 bungalow. At some point in the home's history, vinyl sheet flooring was laid directly on top of the hardwoods in our dining room. This was because the home was converted into apartments, and the dining room was made into a kitchen. Why a k...

We've been peeling back the layers and found some really neat wallpaper patterns. The oldest paper in the living room is gold with white sprays. It was laid over the original painted walls. image.jpeg The "ninja turtle room" had layer after painted-over layer. I thought I hit the last one ...

Hm...my inlaws own a couple of old houses, and they chose to go with the Mistubishi ductless system, which I guess is mini-splits. They love them and suggested we eventually install the same system in our house. Their pros were: inexpensive to install (no putting ducts in a ductless old house), inex...

Okay, who was it that thought there might be decorative painting around my lovely arch? Which, I found out, is actually original to the house! Underneath all the wallpaper, we found the ghosts of decorative painting! The walls were terra cotta, then there were gold rectangles flanking the arch and a...