Maintaining a Historic Feel

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We have  recently completed the whole house renovation project we've been working on in the historic university neighborhood in Chapel Hill.  This home was just waiting for the right owners,  who had the vision - and the patience to bring this majestic home back to life.

By updating the plumbing, electrical, and hvac components, modifying the master bedroom suite, and adding on a new kitchen and screened porch area,  this house was turned into a home with the best of both worlds!

One of the challenges to updating a home in the historic district,  is bringing it up to current building codes without losing the special feeling and design aspects of the original home.  In addition to salvaging much of the interior and exterior trim details,  the bathtubs, and the hardwood flooring -  one important way we were able to maintain the historic feel of this 1930's home was to re-use as much as possible of  the original stair railings.   As is often the case in historic homes, the existing railings were too low for current building codes.   The solution was to build ornate extensions to the structural posts, replace the  shorter pickets with custom code length replicas. and re-use the decorative top rail.

To read more about this project click here!

Finishing the Kitchen!

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The custom kitchen cabinets went in this week. Installing these too were tricky, owing to the curved south wall. But they are solidly built and look terrific. Diane is an artist and has been doing this for many years.

I’m giving two and a half weeks to get the interior trim and stairs in. We’re simultaneously installing the ceramic tile and most of itshould be in at the end of this week.

We’re also templating for the granite countertops. The weather has been very cold but the kerosene heater inside allows us to continue staying warm and on schedule.

To read more about this project click here.

Interior Trim & Flooring on the Curved House

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We’ve started interior trim this week after installing the heartpine floor over Christmas week. The heartpine layout is tricky: there are “rays” coming off the north wall and extending across the great room to the more expansive south wall. They’re layed out approximately every 5’ where we’ve installed steel columns that support the elevated walkway on the north side. Then we infilled perpendicularly between the rays. The floor guys installed in half the time I expected. Two days vs. four!!

The carpenter we have doing the interior trim is taking care of the stairs, too.

The handrailing mirrors the curve of the exterior wall. Lots of progress on the interior this week!

To read more about this post click here!