Photos: Atlanta-based Home Depot banking on older home renovation

Business

Atlanta-based Home Depot banking on older home renovations

Photos: Atlanta-based Home Depot banking on older home renovation

Historic Goulding House is the renovated centerpiece of a new housing development in Roswell off Canton Street. Atlanta-based Home Depot hopes to capitalize on the fact that the nation's housing stock is aging. -- Text by Leon Stafford, AJC; Gallery by Mandi Albright, AJC

The entryway to Goulding House is shown. The home, built in 1857, is a recent rehab project of Kelly Scibona, who worked as an independent architect before joining Atlanta-based builder Front Door Communities.

Shown: The kitchen at Goulding House. The National Historic Register home, built for inventor and naturalist Francis Robert Goulding, is the centerpiece of a new development of 13 houses and 27 townhomes off Roswell’s Canton Street.

“When you have a new house, you have a blank slate and it can be anything you want it to be,” Scibona said. That's not the case with a historic or older home, such as Goulding House, she added.

Goulding House's renovated keeping room, which is the area just off the kitchen of a home.

"When you have an older home, especially one that is historic, you have to take time to save those things that should be saved and update where appropriate. In my opinion a house is a living and breathing thing,” Front Door Communities' Kelly Scibona says.

Scibona’s team restored the grand staircase in the central hall of the more than 7,000-square-foot house, removed a non-historic sunroom that had been added and created a modern kitchen and garage. This is the master bedroom.

Shown: The master bathroom at Goulding House.

Another look at Goulding House's master bathroom.

Seth and Missy Gordon fell in love with their Willow Springs Country Club home in Roswell the minute they saw it. Gordon has spent $250,000 on renovations, including reconfigured bathrooms, new flooring throughout, new carpet, new fixtures in the bathrooms and more.

This picture shows an old-style washstand in reconfigured half bathroom at Seth Gordon's circa 1981 home.

With a $250,000 renovation budget, Gordon and his wife brought their 1981 house up to 2015 standards.

“It’s a very clean aesthetic,” Seth Gordon said of the home’s re-do. “We also reconfigured the baths, added new carpet and updated a guest room.”

While houses in metro Atlanta generally tend to be newer — especially after more than 100,000 were built during the peak years of 2005 and 2006 — about 40 percent of the area’s homes, like Seth Gordon's, are 30 years old or older.

The makeover included white oak floors, zebra wood cabinets and added walk-in closets for the Gordons' daughters.

Seth Gordon said part of what drove him to update was a desire to live in the kind of house that all the accoutrements of today’s trendiest abodes without the price.

America's aging housing stock could mean billions in coming years for Home Depot, as well as archrival Lowe’s and their legions of suppliers, as owners invest in new roofs, kitchen updates and bathroom makeovers with trendy elements like faux wood tile and concrete sinks.

The home renovation and repair industry, valued at about $300 billion, is expected to grow 13 percent in 2016, according to the National Association of the Remodeling Industry.

A new home with all the finishes that Gordon sought would have cost twice as much and would be harder to find in his neighborhood.

To meet the need, both Home Depot and Lowe’s have stocked stores in areas of older homes with supplies remodelers or repairman may need, like fixtures that fit historic houses and compatible replacement parts for hard-to-match plumbing.

1/20

Historic Goulding House is the renovated centerpiece of a new housing development in Roswell off Canton Street. Atlanta-based Home Depot hopes to capitalize on the fact that the nation's housing stock is aging. -- Text by Leon Stafford, AJC; Gallery by Mandi Albright, AJC

Today's Gallery Headlines

Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport long lines

PHOTOS: Scenes from Hartsfield-Jackson airport

Atlanta’s socially anxious are facing their fears through improv

Photos: Atlanta’s socially anxious are facing their fears through improv

Grayson Stadium 100 years

PHOTOS: Savannah's Grayson Stadium through the years

Saturday and weekend airport wait times

PHOTOS: Long security lines snarl airport travelers to start weekend