Atlanta, a city known for its established intown neighborhoods, is often praised for its cute bungalows, quaint Craftsman cottages and restored Victorians. Many of the city’s surrounding municipalities, such as Marietta, Decatur and Norcross, also boast districts of well-maintained old houses that stand as reminders of those cities’ histories.
For old-house enthusiasts, touring these gems gives a glimpse into the beauty of a bygone age. And while they may be lovely to visit, living in them often gives homeowners a very different perspective. They learn to live with limited closet space, small kitchens, creaky floors and high-ceilinged rooms that can be hard to heat or cool.
But what some people might call inconveniences, many old-home owners call character. They cherish the quirkiness of a one-of-a-kind house and appreciate the often hand-honed details that are rare in contemporary structures. Most of all, they love that many of these old homes have sought-after locations.
“It’s all about location,” said Peter Michelson of the Decatur-based Renewal Design Build group. “If you’re in a location you love, and it’s an historic district, you can’t tear the house down, and you can’t move it.”
But it can be expanded. Michelson’s firm specializes in renovations and additions to houses dating from the 1920s, ’40s and ’50s. Most of the Craftsman-style or faux Tudor designs that line the streets of many intown neighborhoods lend themselves to a rear or second-story addition. But those projects come with special considerations. The first may be dealing with a district or city review board charged with maintaining the area’s architectural integrity.
“Most historical boards are concerned with what can be seen from the street,” Michelson said. “Typically, they want to see consistency and continuity. A homeowner may have less flexibility about what they are allowed to do. So the first thing to find out is whether or not you’re in an historic district.”
If a neighborhood does have strict historical guidelines, it may mean making slight alterations, such as adding brick instead of siding or using a particular type of windows that fit with the home’s character.
“The goal is really to make it look original,” said David Hutchison of the Virginia-Highland-based Cornerstone Builders. “We try to design to the period so what we do looks like an original house from the 1920s or ’30s. If you drive through Candler Park or Virginia-Highland, you’ll see additions and second stories that made no attempt to look original.”
Keeping the original flavor doesn’t always mean spending more, Hutchison said. “We recycle a lot. We can use old butler’s pantries — we may have to reassemble and move them, but we can incorporate them into a new wet bar. We can use recycled heart of pine for flooring. Or we can take wood out of a closet and use that to make a repair.”
Paying attention to those details often means an old-house renovation is not going to be a quick project. Kara O’Brien, an Atlanta-based renovator who has been working on historic properties since 1997, said it’s important for owners or prospective buyers to accept that, in general, things are going to take a lot longer.
“There are more things to deal with when you’re handling old-world, craftsman stuff,” she said. “And each old house has things that are particular to it. I worked on one where all the windows were different sizes. If we’re working on windows, we remove everything very carefully. Layers of paint are hand-stripped. Then we reglaze, put a new finish on the outside, strip the paint off the old hardware and put everything back in place. It takes a long time.”
A few other hurdles that old-home owners face when remodeling include replacing lead-based paint on trim, a process that often is so costly, it may be cheaper to replace the trim completely. Sagging floors may need bolstering. Wiring and plumbing systems are often outdated and need to be upgraded with contemporary materials. Many fireplaces were outfitted to burn coal and are very shallow, which makes them impractical to use with anything other than gas logs.
Another consideration O’Brien asks owners to think about before any work begins is the distinct possibility that somewhere, something is rotting.
“There is always some sort of mysterious rot somewhere,” she said. “Just because we don’t see anything doesn’t mean it’s not there. This just happened to a house I’m working on in Ormewood Park. When we tore out the kitchen, we found someone had covered up black mold that we could see only after we tore the cabinets out. If the floors are bouncy, I know there are problems. So I usually have an ‘oh-no’ amount built into each project because there may be a surprise issue we have to deal with.”
A renovation or addition also can be complicated by the types of building materials found in old homes, points out Wright Marshall of Revival Construction.
“The big change came around World War II, when builders shifted from plaster to drywall and started using more standardized sizes for things,” he said. “But as you get into older houses, the materials were whatever the builder had. The design was whatever the architect created. Ceiling heights were less uniform; even wall thicknesses were different.”
Those factors can make it hard to match the new elements with the old. Another difficulty is incorporating modern standards, such as double-glazed windows.
“It can be a challenge when people want to use new, standardized things that don’t match the detail of the house,” Marshall said. “You certainly don’t have to match everything in a slavish way, but the quality should be equal. Someone might be able to tell there’s an addition, but it’s nice if they don’t know when it was done.”
After modernizing kitchens and baths, the biggest project many old-home remodelers take on is adding a second floor. That’s a particularly popular change with Craftsman bungalows and cottages with unfinished attics. Then the issue becomes whether the original structure can support an additional floor.
“Generally, most of them can,” Marshall said. “It’s not necessarily an engineering issue. The challenge is using the whole footprint of the house and working in an attic space that isn’t always an even box. That can get tricky.”
Marshall also devotes considerable time to correcting renovations or remodels that were done haphazardly.
“That’s a lot of our work — undoing bad projects,” he said. “For instance, before Ansley Park came back, there was a lot of remodeling in the ’70s and ’80s that was not very sophisticated. You can see an obvious 1978 addition on the back of a 1920s house. Houses that are more original are actually a bit easier when it comes to remodeling.”
Despite the additional investigating, planning, designing and reworking that an old-house project might entail, people who are drawn to live in one are often willing to accept the challenges.
“Old-house people are a special breed,” O’Brien said. “They know they’re going to have challenges that people who live in new houses don’t. There may be hidden issues, but there is also 100 or 130 years of history. I think that’s what people who live in old houses really appreciate.”
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