c1906 Triple Brick Victorian

[Sinoed]

Hey everyone! I've been browsing old house forums and stumbled on the Historic District after looking through threads on Old House Web. I purchased a century home in the summer and have plans to slowly restore it back to former glory. The home was kept in the same family for over sixty years (they still live in the area) and started to fall into disrepair ~15 years ago when it became a rental property. Unfortunately the most recent previous owners, decided to make the house look "modern" painting the brick fireplaces & floors black, and coating all the gorgeous woodwork with white paint. This grand old lady needs a bit of loving care, but I'm fortunate that most of the original pieces are still intact (mouldings, hardware, flooring, some windows) and with a bit of work it will be fantastic since I absolutely love the character.

I'm really not sure what style it would be called, its fairly common in the area (any thoughts on this??). Based on some research I've done on the title, I think it was built between 1905 and 1907. I live in Alberta and have my uncle staying there so progress will be slow. So far on the outside I've done a ton of landscaping, painted the porch floor, all exterior doors, refinished the original porch railings and added new gutters & spouts. I've also repaired/replaced all of the locksets (none were original and all were mismatched ). On the inside, I repainted the kitchen cabinets to clean them up, added a new counter, sink & hardware, started stripping the black paint off the fireplace, pulled down the awful wallpaper in the stairwell and painted the bedrooms & the bathroom upstairs.

This week, the electricians finished the first of the major projects I'll finish over the next few years and rewired the whole house. There was a mix of old 1940's wiring along with knob and tube and several dangerous outlets. I was so impressed with the electrician I hired - he loves old houses & knew exactly what to do. There were only a couple very tiny holes which were a breeze to fix (I was so afraid of giant holes cut through all my plaster) and he was so careful with all of the woodwork & original mouldings. It was difficult to find the "right" person (I received a few quotes) and I lucked out. If you're in the Midland area and need an electrician just send me a PM.

This week I'm having a small attic room finished (drywall & flooring) and the plaster walls repaired (although sadly some have been covered in drywall). Next on the list will probably be the sunroom over the porch (which unfortunately involves the roof).

I have a few pictures for you:

[Sinoed]

A few more pictures:

[Sinoed]

Last ones PS Don't mind the mess - some of these are photos from when I went through the house before buying it. Also, I'm not sure why some attachments are sideways?

[1918ColonialRevival]

Congratulations! Even though it's had some mistreatment over the years, it looks like much of the important stuff is still there and is workable.

I'd say your date estimate is pretty close. Looking at the transitional style of the house, I would guess it's about 1905 at the earliest and early 1910s to maybe 1915 at the latest. It still has a few Queen Anne elements (mainly the exterior shape and layout), but you can see a mix of revival elements (Colonial, Neoclassical, and even a hint of Tudor in the fireplaces) emerging. The sleeping porch on the second floor looks like it might have come a little later, but it could be original.

No house restoration is easy, but the good thing about houses of this era is that they are late enough for much of the items like doors, windows, trim, hardware, etc., to have been mass produced and as a result, can be found today with some searching. If you can't turn up an exact match, you can almost always find something that is close enough to work with what you have.

[Ober51]

Congrats! What a great house. As someone that is currently undoing the "fresh paint" theory, stripping that woodwork is going to be a LOOOONG process. I can't wait to see the progress.

[Mick_VT]

Hey Sinoed, welcome to the District!

[Nicholas]

Hi, definitely a lot of character (and restoration of character) in that one.

[Sinoed]

I thnk the fireplace is also something that was relatively common in the area at the time. I've seen the same one (and variations of it) in a few different house listings since I bought mine. I was wondering if it could have been a local business so I'm just dying to get back and do some research at the library. It would be really cool to go through the newspapers at the time and see what's there.

At the turn of the century Midland was "the" place to be. A logging boom was on, the train was coming into town, and wealthy citizens from Chicago came up through Georgian Bay to spend their summers there. A number of beautiful homes were built but sadly the town never prospered the way everyone thought and it remains a slightly out of the way tourist spot on a pretty harbour.

I'm not sure what will be worse - cleaning up the remaining original woodwork or the miles of original trim. I'd like to do the windows so I can get them weather tight but i've never tackled anything like that before. The dining room is a complete re-do, someone attempted to refinish it in the past and stained all the woodwork a deep mahogany - completely out of character with the house. The living room has been painted white, but I think it's only one coat of latex and I'm hoping it comes off easy. We accidentally got a bit of stripper on the trim by the fireplace while cleaning and it didn't seem to be too bad so I've got my fingers crossed.

[1918ColonialRevival]

The exposed stone and brick fireplace surrounds were common in the early 20th Century, but yours are a little different than most I have seen from that era. If you've seen the same or similar ones in other houses in the area, it's almost certain they were done by the same person or the same company.

Hopefully there's only one coat of paint hiding that woodwork and masonry. If your test area on the fireplace gave up without much resistance, that's an encouraging sign. If you're looking for a good chemical stripper, I recommend SoyGel. Not cheap, but it does a better job than any other chemical stripper I've used. If you're comfortable using a heat gun to strip it, that will work good too, just be sure to keep it moving so you don't scorch the wood underneath.

[Texas_Ranger]

Last ones PS Don't mind the mess - some of these are photos from when I went through the house before buying it. Also, I'm not sure why some attachments are sideways?

Software issue. Your camera stores the info how you held it while you snapped the picture but doesn't actually rotate your portrait shots. The computer reads the camera info and displays the pics in the correct orientation but the forum software doesn't - you need some kind of basic picture editing software like ACDSee or even just Paint to rotate them before you upload.