Victorian Terrace Exterior Restoration - bad 20th century updates
We have just bought a victorian terraced house and would love to restore it as much as possible (within our budget) closer to how it originally looked and to others on the street.
It has had a PVC porch put onto the front which we would love to remove and have the sash window reinstated.
We would also love to reinstate the front door placement and have it put back to the original recessed position. The inner ceiling curve which I guess would have been the front of the porch is still there so I don't imagine that part would be a huge job(??)
First image is our house (PVC!) and second image is a bay window in the area which we like (and wouldn't be as intricate stonework as the others).
Would love to hear some opinions and what kind of cost this would be. An initial quote including stone moulds was 30-40k which we found hard to believe?! Therefore won't be getting the moulds! Any advice/suggestions hugely recommended!
Comments (7)
christinaloch
3 years agoRelated Discussions
What would you do?
Comments (69)Have a look at how this house would have been presented in 1928. See if you can find any archives from the firm which designed it. Pebble-dash has a long history of domestic use here, going back to the nineteenth century, and it is possible to renovate it or replace it with modern pebble-dash which looks very handsome. At one time a terrible pink pd was used (later twentieth century), but the look you would be after is a tawny, sandy-beach range of colours. Your house was built at a time when there was a great taste for creating manageable homes with subtle rustic touches to give a cottagey feel without making extra work for the maid/housewife or actually making it look like a real cottage (which at that time still meant the slums people were escaping as much as anything else.) The 20s were also a time when the popular taste for half-timbered and timber-framed buildings was very strong. The people who call the buildings in Canada and the US "Tudor" because of the timber decoration on the exterior derive their description from early 20th c useage in Britain. Real timber-framed etc buildings used render which had to be reparied and repainted pretty constantly. This is where pebble-dash, a vry tough material, comes in. I wouldn't lose it! I'd keep it and clean and mend it. If you get someone in to fix it the old-fashioned way you'll be surprised at the skill it takes (not unlike harling.) Look at the nice way it flares at the bottom so neatly. Don't lose these humble period details, I beg of you. But rethink the porch and hide the burglar-alarm....See MoreWhat topics would you like to see more of?
Comments (75)Yes, please. Hiding the ugly necessities of daily living so that they are easily accessible. Without this, the grandest interior scheme goes to pot in the face of children's and the grandparents' needs - especially when they share the same space. AND DISABLED grandparents' needs - and accoutrements!...See More60s townhouse exterior dilemma...
Comments (17)One has to question what is going on here, as you appear to feel your house does not make a 'good enough' statement? My first reaction to the exterior was to recoil at the rather 'pushy' cars parked outside, plus the tragic pvc door and weatherboarding! Apart from that the house looks to be quite a sensible, space-efficient design with the reduced heat losses that a terrace brings... Your house is not an individual, but is part of a row of three or even more, meaning that anything you do should take into account the others, be sympathetic and integrate with them. My attitude as a sustainable design consultant would be to only spend money on things that really need upgrading, and only do that with the greatest care so that you do not harm the structure and take into account condensation risk etc. Think carefully about the effect all your changes will make to heat loss and your space heating requirements! Also consider any possible overheating via glazing and be aware that glass has one of the highest carbon footprints while insulation is really low. Remember that every penny you spend earning money comes with an environmental footprint, and when you spend this money you then add a further environmental impact! The obvious areas which could be improved are wall insulation, glazing, doors and air-tightness. Any new glazing should be designed to give really low whole-window U values and should use warm-edge spacers. For me PVC is out of the question as it is rubbish, looks tacky and reduces glazing area. If you are using timber, then look into using Accoya, douglas fir or oak. Velfac certainly make quality windows and doors, but it would be better if all the houses installed them to keep the facade consistent. Thermally broken Nordan, SAS Pure, Aluprof slimline are other windows/doors to check out. If the weatherboarding is to be replaced, then I would advise using Marley Eternit Cedral or Cedral Click (Cembrit also offer a pressed cement board) which will never rot, but again, consider getting your neighbours to join in). You can paint this yourself with Dulux weathershield. Most cedar cladding looks awful once the UV light starts to break it down and the rain gets in. To me, the way we live our lives on the planet is much more important than the way things 'look'. People are exploited by the fashion and interior design companies into spending money on short-term whims and froth which all impact on the resources the planet creates for us. That is not to say that good design is unimportant -take a Harry Bertoia chair for instance - classics that just go on for ever. My motto is KEEP IT SIMPLE & SUSTAINABLE - QUALITY RATHER THAN QUANTITY. Hope this is helpful....See MoreWhat do you want to read about on Houzz this year?
Comments (53)I can't help but speculate that perhaps the reason so many houses featured are London based or more high-end properties is because most of the case studies are uploaded by architecture or design professionals who employ professional photographers to show off the finished results. These services aren't cheap and I don't imagine these companies get too many requests from owners of smaller 30's - 70's era homes, especially from outside the capital, because the homeowners won't see a return on the investment. I would have thought requesting design-savvy home owners load more of their own photo's would help bridge the gap. Perhaps on the next newsletter you can ask homeowners to consider contributing any photos of spaces they are particularly proud of?...See Morechristinaloch
3 years ago
E D
3 years agolast modified: 3 years agoIdeally, if you replace the bay and its windows you’d want to have the same material and style windows upstairs.
Your top floor windows aren’t too bad and if you decide to go for UPVC again I would still try and stick to the original style/profile as much as possible. Here’s a couple of Victorian houses similar to yours, that have the original style windows.
TIMBER WINDOW FRAMES:
UPVC WINDOW FRAMES (house on the right in photo):
I wouldn’t go with the vertical bars if UPVC.christinaloch thanked E Dchristinaloch
3 years ago
Sonia