1940's housing, where do I start

[sheeplady]

I understand that big trees are a major selling point. My personal experience has to do with when they fall. I am not going to go into those experiences, except to say that I am lucky to still be living and that my experiences occurred with perfectly healthy trees (arborist certified healthy). Following these incidents, my parents had an arborist come to the house and he directed my parents not to plant any trees that mature to above 50 feet within 50 feet of their home, no trees which mature to 100 feet within a 100 feet of their home, etc. For me (obviously with a weird set of experiences) that lesson stuck.

Believe me, I absolutely love trees, and I've planted many. Just not within 50 feet of my house, unless they are under 50 feet at maturity. There are a ton of trees that meet those standards at maturity which are quite beautiful (including some native species where I live, so would assume the same for all over). And there are ways to plant these trees to still provide shade to your home, despite their smaller stature.

 

[sheeplady]

I understand that the EPA will start enforcing stricts compliance codes in regards to asbestos and lead paint in older homes. Just to fix some of them up will require a haz-mat team. (Sarcastic)

They already have for contractors. I think if they have to disturb more than a couple linear feet of lead paint in the US, they need to be certified in lead removal.

At first glance, this is a bunch of hooey. Then I learned that my in-law's contractor hired two out-of-work college kids $200 to take down my inlaw's suspected abestos ceiling from their entire home, without any safety gear- no masks, no suits, nothing. That's not right, either.

I do think they overblow these things a bit, although you need to be careful. It's not right to expose workers to substances known to be harmful, when extremely cheap protective gear exists that almost totally eliminates the risk.

 

[Lincsong]

Oh, yeah. THere was a house around the block where the water heater leaked and flooded the house. The place was covered with "Hazard" signs because they were removing the sheetrock. Non-sense. I know dozens upon dozens of people who cut out the old sheet rock, added onto their homes and nothing ever happened. Now, removing that fluffy insulation that was blown in the attics is an entirely different story.

 

[LizzieMaine]

They already have for contractors. I think if they have to disturb more than a couple linear feet of lead paint in the US, they need to be certified in lead removal.

At first glance, this is a bunch of hooey. Then I learned that my in-law's contractor hired two out-of-work college kids $200 to take down my inlaw's suspected abestos ceiling from their entire home, without any safety gear- no masks, no suits, nothing. That's not right, either.

We had a guy in town here, an absentee landlord who owned a dump of a duplex over in the next block from where I live, who tried to get away with this -- and someone saw what he was doing, snapped a picture with their cell phone, and sent it anonymously to the authorities. Mr. Slumlord got slammed with a very large fine. They mean business.

 

[AtomicEraTom]

Sheetrock isn't going to hurt anybody. Just wear a respirator mask if you're worried about the dust. I've been helping renovate homes since I was knee high to a grasshopper and never had problems. Just don't be careless and you'll be fine.

Oh, yeah. THere was a house around the block where the water heater leaked and flooded the house. The place was covered with "Hazard" signs because they were removing the sheetrock. Non-sense. I know dozens upon dozens of people who cut out the old sheet rock, added onto their homes and nothing ever happened. Now, removing that fluffy insulation that was blown in the attics is an entirely different story.

 

[Darren van Ek]

Thanks guys for all the advice, I guess the number 1 thing to take away from all this is get a thorough inspection done first before your heart takes over and makes you buy it !!
I will adjust my profile to say where I am from to, probably rather misleading for some, sorry about that!

 

[Miss Sis]

Agree with the advice to get a proper survey done - you need to know what you are getting into and whether you have the funds to set anything that is wrong right.

It certainly looks like a solid built house. I'd imagine that Post War housing in Oz was similar to in NZ where I'm from, and those houses were built to last from quality materials. The floors are particularly beautiful in the first link. Hope it all works out for you!

 

[Haversack]

Another caveat to housing from the mid-to-late 1940s is that in addition to the housing shortage affecting build quality, a lot of innovations in both building materials and building techniques began to be widely used. Some of these were successful. Others were not. Some were just weird. Look up Tournalayer some time.

Haversack.

 

[Lincsong]

Another caveat to housing from the mid-to-late 1940s is that in addition to the housing shortage affecting build quality, a lot of innovations in both building materials and building techniques began to be widely used. Some of these were successful. Others were not. Some were just weird. Look up Tournalayer some time.

Haversack.

Agreed. Some of these two bedroom 800 square foot shacks built for war housing can only be saved by a gallon of gas and a match.

 

[hellsbellslolly]

In England particularly in a lot of areas, older properties are more sought after. I'm not sure about other places I can only tell you of what I know.
We bought a 1920's house, it is your typical double bay window semi detached property. Lawn to the front lawn to the back, garage etc. The garages were built smaller originally because of the size of cars back then. Think Morris minor's etc. So parking a modern car inside isn't perhaps always possible. But you still have storage. We went for it because houses from this period were built on bigger plots of land, gardens were not overlooked because they were more mature by now (trees etc). And they feature bigger bedrooms, higher ceilings, feature fireplaces and stain glass windows. Our bathroom is upstairs, but we still have the traditional outside toilet and outhouse etc.
The only thing we struggled with when we were doing up our house was the heating, we bought it before the efficiency guidlelines came out. So our boiler was around 40 years old and it leaked over the floor in the kitchen, plumbers wouldn't touch it! I don't know how we didnt notice before but it was our first house and we had a baby on the way and we were excited I guess. But the heating bills were stupidly high, around 1500 pounds (sterling) every 3 months until we got a new boiler put in. The old system had rust in it so it was corroding the radiators from the inside out and splitting them. Imagine boiling hot water spurting over the floor! We had one radiator in my son's bedroom that was so blocked from the sludge it never heated up! Eventually we had it all ripped out and new rads fitted etc etc. Older house's do take alot more work, but I wouldn't have it any other way. Because once they are done, they look beautiful. We sourced our kitchen with solid wooden work tops and butler sink from a freecycle site, our furnishings come from an antique place in our area. Light fittings were actually Laura Ashley and some from carboots and charity shops etc. It takes longer perhaps to find everything for an older home, to get it all fit in, but its much more satisfying to find something that goes somewhere and really sets it off, more so than selecting from an Ikea magazine.

 

[Viola]

If it were me, (and it's not, *sob*, because I have a '70s apartment... cue wailing and gnashing of teeth) what I would do is move slowly but have an overall game plan and colour scheme in mind.

I mean, any older home is going to need repairs and maintenance so I would go softly with sweeping plans for cosmetic renewal before I knew what it's particular foibles were. But each time something needs to be replaced - it can be replaced with something more architecturally appropriate. The thing here will be to have an overall style or colour-scheme in mind so your stuff doesn't fight or have to be redone to go with your other stuff.

I don't know which aspect of '40s-'50s design particularly speaks to your heart. So I'm going to use myself as an example, with my apologies.

I'd personally love to see new floors in the kitchen and bathroom, though I cannot tell what condition they are in, and I might be inclined to wait until they are worn or you're replacing other things. I'm a person who loves black and white floors in kitchens and bathrooms. I also recently saw on Retro Renovation an apple-green VCT floor that was great.

The green one is here, rather perky and fun. http://retrorenovation.com/2011/06/17/betty-crafter-says-yes-to-the-knotty-pine/. To be perfectly honest, knotty pine doesn't actually do a dang thing for me, but I loved the floor and it was respectful to the house and a cohesive look.

In a totally different tone, I am enamoured of this one in just black and white - I know that light is a reproduction but I don't care.

I do like wallpaper in vintage homes. It doesn't HAVE to be loud or tiki (not that there's anything wrong with that, if that's what floats your boat...) but I find its just a thing that tends to be left out of even sympathetic re-dos.

I would love to see different lighting in that house. Both because I dislike recessed but also just because vintage-style light fixtures just have so much more interest. Both ceiling lights and sconces. Sconces are a great element for vintage homes.