Honoring preservation isn’t the same as historical restoration and it doesn’t call for living in a museum interior. Replacing elements that have failed or gone missing is often prohibitively expensive if not impossible. Decorating decisions usually don’t have a permanent effect on the architecture. Upgrades aren’t necessarily virtuous. Simply put, preservation means taking it easy on the house (something you may wish previous owners had done). It means getting to know the house and its history before making irreversible changes; it means not destroying the good work of the past.
No need to erase original features in a quest for comfort and personal preference … and you may find that period design provides inspiration.Let the house itself tell you what it wants to be. Style cues abound: in the design of…
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Old House Journal (Digital) - 1 Issue, May/June 2024