Whole-Home Restoration of a 1913 Foursquare

The brief

The owners bought the house knowing what had been done to it. Dropped ceilings in three rooms, a partition splitting the original front parlour, hollow-core doors throughout, and the entire ground floor carpeted over old-growth fir.

They wanted the house back, without pretending it was still 1913 where that would have made it unpleasant to live in.

What we found

Knob-and-tube wiring in service across most of the second floor. The dropped ceilings were hiding the original plaster, which was cracked but repairable in two of the three rooms. Under the carpet, the fir was in good shape except where a radiator had leaked at some point.

The foundation was unbolted, which is normal for the age and worth correcting while the walls were open.

What we did

We catalogued and removed the original trim before demolition, repaired what could be saved, and had the missing profiles milled to match. In the front room the mix is roughly two-thirds original; you cannot tell which third is not.

The house was rewired completely, the panel replaced, and the foundation bolted and braced. Those three items are invisible in every photograph and were the most valuable part of the project.

Kitchen and bathrooms are new and read as period-appropriate rather than as reproductions.

The result

Seven months, one lead carpenter throughout, and a contingency that got used — openly, with photographs, and approved before the work happened. The owners still send us pictures of the front room in different light.