15 Old House Features that we were wrong to abandon...

[MikeKardec]

My grandmother lived in a big old Spanish style house in the Los Feliz area of LA, nearly underneath the Griffith Park Observatory. You entered the house via a porte-cochère which lead to a small hallway and then a central two story hall with a stairway and second floor rooms opening off a balcony that was sort of a continuation of the stairway. The entire wall of the room at the front of the house was Tiffany glass and in the morning the sun coming through the outside windows of that room would light up the main hall. I believe that room had once been my grandfather's office, it was right beside the master bedroom, and the "children" (several generations of them) were not really allowed in there, though he was long dead.

That house also had two enclosed gardens, one with a wonderful cracked and leaking fountain. It was pretty rundown in my youth but filled with mementos of a once opulent lifestyle.

My current house (ca 1938) had a "telephone room." A closet that housed a small build in desk, a phone jack and a stool plus a shelf for phone books. I love that but I had to turn it into a clothes closet. My previous apartment had decorative plaster moldings framing nearly every single wall panel.

But the old fashioned detail I think is really cool is this --



I just got back from Germany and I saw this sort of curtained inglenook in a number of old houses like the Cecilienhof Palace, where the Potsdam Confrence was held. If it's really cold that looks like a great place to draw the curtains and warm up.

 

[Shangas]

Where do "open floor plan" people hide all their crap and clutter when company's coming?

While I can see the appeal of 'open floor plans', I can also see how they can be a HUGE pain in the butt. Between one and the other, I'd rather have a house with clearly marked boundaries and rooms.

 

[tonyb]

I'm all for open floor plans in houses designed to have open floor plans. And I've seen some remodels of older houses that involved "opening" some rooms, and the results were quite positive.
What I don't care for are what I've heard called "remuddles." I'm not advocating that people live in museums (unless, of course, they wish to), and I have seen countless examples of appointments from wide timespans working quite well together (modernist chairs and sofas often play nicely with antique Persian rugs, for instance), but it's almost heartbreaking to see a Victorian or a craftsman house have its original windows discarded in favor of vinyl clad replacements, or its original siding replaced with T1-11 (yes, I've seen such outrages, more times than I care to recall).

 

[DecoDame]

I'm all for most of these suggestions: casement windows, eating nooks, window seats especially. The stuff that's useful and also keeps you from feeling like you're just living in a drywall box.

But I don't think anyone has mentioned steam heat radiators yet.

I'm sure there are many issues I'm not aware of with them (that perhaps newer technology could solve?) but they were in the first city apartment I ever had. It was a large brick apartment building downtown and had a fully functioning radiator system. Nothing (short of a nice wood fire) has ever warmed me straight through to the bone in our Ohio winters as did that radiator heat.

The radiators never got extremely hot to the touch (of course my apartment was upstairs and wasn't close to the source/boiler room) and I never noted the noise people have complained about (just pleasant "ticking") and so on, so I had a good experience... I wonder how fuel efficient a heater it is?

 

[Guttersnipe]

Good point about radiators. My building had steam heat radiators, until the owner foisted electric wall heaters on us several years ago; boy do I miss the old radiators! When a steam heating system is in well-maintained and working properly, it won't "bang" or "hiss" and the outer case doesn't dangerously hot.

 

[Stearmen]

I have steam radiators in my Victorian. You are right a bought the nice heat they put off. I can also turn the heat lower and still be comfortable. Plus, when you light them for the first time at the beginning of winter, they don't blow out dust that smells awful! I have been in new homes with underfloor radiant heat, that fills great also. Makes you wonder why forced air is the norm! That's a rhetorical question. Cheep, easy to install, as Lizzie Maine would say, "darn the boys in marketing!"

 

[LizzieMaine]

That's a big part of it, but another reason is simply that prior to the postwar era most smaller houses didn't have central heating. It was largely a luxury for the upper-middle classes, which is why it shows up in stately old Victorian homes originally built by people who had some money to play with. Working-class houses usually made do with stove heating, usually kerosene or coal-fired, until after the war when cheap oil-fired forced hot air heating became popular. It was much less expensive than a boiler-radiator system, and much easier to maintain.

Only place I ever lived in that had a boiler-radiator system was a converted Victorian house that had been carved up into apartments in the early forties. The radiators were very noisy, thanks to an absentee landlord who didn't much care what happened to the building as long as the rents were paid, and the boiler had a lot of issues that required frequent visits in the middle of the night from a repairman.

 

[Fading Fast]

I live in a 1927 apartment building that still uses steam heat. Yes, it does knock and rattle now and again, but (and maybe I'm crazy) it is a comforting sound to me. But to DecoDame's point, I love the heat. I can turn it on or off with a turn of the knob at the base of the radiator and I can control the heat really well by knowing how far to turn the knob to get the right amount to heat. And it is wonderful heat that nicely warms the room.

I've lived in modern apartment with ''forced hot air" I believe it was called and it couldn't compare. It came on and off based on the thermostat: when on, it felt like a gust of hot air was blowing in and, when off, the room quickly got cold. The radiator does actually radiate heat that warms the room's air more consistently; whereas, the forced hot air seemed to fight the cold air for space and once it wasn't blowing, the cold air won again.

I am not talking about cost, efficiency or other features of waste or economics, but as pure user experience, I like the 1927 technology to the newer one I've experienced.

 

[HudsonHawk]

I live in a 1927 apartment building that still uses steam heat. Yes, it does knock and rattle now and again, but (and maybe I'm crazy) it is a comforting sound to me. But to DecoDame's point, I love the heat. I can turn it on or off with a turn of the knob at the base of the radiator and I can control the heat really well by knowing how far to turn the knob to get the right amount to heat. And it is wonderful heat that nicely warms the room.

I've lived in modern apartment with ''forced hot air" I believe it was called and it couldn't compare. It came on and off based on the thermostat: when on, it felt like a gust of hot air was blowing in and, when off, the room quickly got cold. The radiator does actually radiate heat that warms the room's air more consistently; whereas, the forced hot air seemed to fight the cold air for space and once it wasn't blowing, the cold air won again.

I am not talking about cost, efficiency or other features of waste or economics, but as pure user experience, I like the 1927 technology to the newer one I've experienced.

Most central air conditioning systems aren't as efficient because they use the same ductwork to blow hot or cold air. Depending on where your ducts are, floor or ceiling, either the hot or the cold air is fighting physics and gravity. One works well, but the other not so much. Luckily for me, I only have to turn the heat on a couple of nights a year, so the furnace, and its efficiency, is really an afterthought for me.

 

[DecoDame]

...I've lived in modern apartment with ''forced hot air" I believe it was called and it couldn't compare. It came on and off based on the thermostat: when on, it felt like a gust of hot air was blowing in and, when off, the room quickly got cold. The radiator does actually radiate heat that warms the room's air more consistently; whereas, the forced hot air seemed to fight the cold air for space and once it wasn't blowing, the cold air won again...

Plus that forced air heat dries us up so badly, I feel like a nicely cured bit of beef jerky straight from the dehydrator come February. Really hate it. Our present home has a gas wall furnace that blows its heat and we've only used it the last few years as back-up (or a quick fix on cold mornings) to our wood stove and portable electric oil-filled radiators. The wall unit is best as a regulator to keep the temps above pipe bustin' weather when we're away, but otherwise...

The only thing I enjoy about the wall unit is that we came across a working old "Bryant" thermostat still in the box, that we had the contractor install when we moved in. That's the best part about using it! It looks like a mini refrigerator.

 

[Atticus Finch]

My house in Beaufort has a telephone nook. Its located centrally, so that every person in the house can hear your part of the conversation without even trying.

AF

 

[docneg]

Only place I ever lived in that had a boiler-radiator system was a converted Victorian house that had been carved up into apartments in the early forties. The radiators were very noisy, thanks to an absentee landlord who didn't much care what happened to the building as long as the rents were paid, and the boiler had a lot of issues that required frequent visits in the middle of the night from a repairman.

My last house was an 1897 beauty which a previous owner had "modernized" with a forced-air furnace. The first thing I did was get the boiler running again, and the hot water radiators were great; just what I grew up with, and the best heat you can get. People thought I was crazy.

While hot water radiators are typically not as noisy as steam, mine did develop a problem one October that was bizarre. It made moaning and groaning sounds that sounded so much like haunted house noises that people thought I did it as a gimmick for Halloween! It turned out to be easy to fix, but it sure was creepy.

At least I THINK it was the radiator!

 

[Stearmen]

Double hung windows are making a big come back. The new ones are nice, no ropes to break, or heavy weights. Plus, you can pull a couple of tabs at the top and swing the window inwards for easy cleaning of the out side part of the window. Nice for air circulation also! raise the lower window for cold air, lower the top window to let out hot air, or, a combination of both. [video=youtube;-bpVvU9WJDI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bpVvU9WJDI[/video]

 

[Fading Fast]

My last house was an 1897 beauty which a previous owner had "modernized" with a forced-air furnace. The first thing I did was get the boiler running again, and the hot water radiators were great; just what I grew up with, and the best heat you can get. People thought I was crazy.

While hot water radiators are typically not as noisy as steam, mine did develop a problem one October that was bizarre. It made moaning and groaning sounds that sounded so much like haunted house noises that people thought I did it as a gimmick for Halloween! It turned out to be easy to fix, but it sure was creepy.

At least I THINK it was the radiator!

Let me state upfront, I am not talking about a system that bangs and bongs all day and night or that is so loud that it wakes you up constantly or where you can't hear yourself think, but a little banging or groaning when it first comes on or now and again (ours do that for about 1-2 minutes, 2-3 times a day) gives the house (or in our case, apartment) some soul or life in a way - you start to know its individual characteristics and it feels like it has personality. And it can sometimes help you know if something is wrong as we did when ours starting knocking in a funny way. I mentioned it to the one of the handymen and he came up, took a took, and said, "good thing you mentioned it, your on-off valve was cracked and would probably have broken shortly and potentially caused some damage."

I feel the same about creaking floors, doors and cabinets - they reflect the uniqueness of your home.

 

[Bugguy]

Or where there just isn't space for an open hinged door -- where it might collide with another door, for instance, or block a path, or cover a cabinet, or ...

I just installed a pocket door in my main floor powder room for exactly this reason. Instead of opening into the hall, it opened against the commode such that you needed to be a contortionist to use it. [/FONT]

 

[Bugguy]

This thread got me thinking about the coal bin (small room) we had in the Chicago bungalow I grew up in that fed the big "octopus" gravity-feed coal furnace.





This transitioned into the room we kept the heating oil tank in,



then became unused when we converted to gas. My point... it ultimately made a great, but small, workshop, and the coal chute door had an exhaust fan I retrofitted to pull out fumes from the shop.

Almost every bungalow had one and many devolved into the first "man caves".

 

[Stearmen]

another feature that I have noticed in new homes that is making a come back is, formal staircases! After hiding the stairs in walls since the 50s, it is nice to see stairs with a landing and railings again.

 

[MikeKardec]

All the WPA era schools I went to had steam heat. Very nice in the winter but not very responsive to the cool mornings/hot afternoons of the Southern California spring and fall ... less now that it's so much hotter. Luckily the ceilings were really high with floor to ceiling windows that all opened. My Junior High was designed by Richard Neutra with ground floor walls that rolled aside so that those rooms all had a patio.

I used to love the old gravity heat in my mother's house and grandmother's house. Dead silent with a button in each room you pushed once for warm (and got a nice little light on the switch to light up) twice for medium (the other light) three times for high (both lights) and then again for off. Of course that was replaced to install air conditioning in the 1980s. The distant furnace made a very mild "kerlunk" sound each time you pushed the button ... quite satisfying in a subtle way.

 

[tonyb]

... My Junior High was designed by Richard Neutra with ground floor walls that rolled aside so that those rooms all had a patio. ...

This joint, right?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerson_Middle_School_(Los_Angeles)

A casual observer might guess this place was built in the 1960s, or late-'50s at the earliest. In actuality, it went up in 1937-'38. Truly "Golden Era," eh?

 

[HudsonHawk]

All the WPA era schools I went to had steam heat. Very nice in the winter but not very responsive to the cool mornings/hot afternoons of the Southern California spring and fall ... less now that it's so much hotter. Luckily the ceilings were really high with floor to ceiling windows that all opened. My Junior High was designed by Richard Neutra with ground floor walls that rolled aside so that those rooms all had a patio.

I never had heat or a/c in school until I was in the 10th grade. We had windows in the back of the class and a giant draw fan in the front.