Renovate Your Era Property For Its Former Beauty

In the UK there are nearly 6,000,000 period properties, with around half a million of them being listed properties that predate the 1920s. There is a lot to think about when it comes to renovating a property, if you are planning to live in that particular house for decades with all your family, then you need to take the time for period property renovation .  Restoring a period property requires that you research the traditional or original construction of the building involved in order to bring it back to its former glory.

Most ‘old’ houses will have a structure built with solid walls i.e. stone timber frame and brick. Because these are all breathable materials, you will run into difficulty with renovating if you then choose to use modern materials that do not breathe. This would include, for example, waterproofing materials or emulsion paints.

In general, one of the first steps to take will be an assessment of any remedial action required for damage caused by damp. This may manifest as mouldy wallpaper, rotting timber frame, deteriorating stonework or flaking plaster.

Other tasks required in restoring your property may include repairing old sash windows, stripping and replacing roofs and undertaking timber frame repairs.

Glass in the windows may need replacing in many old buildings, but if it is not obviously damaged, it may add more value to your property by trying to retain it rather than replace it. Energy and heat efficiency issues aside, the original glass often adds character to the property. To assess whether the windows still contain the original glass work,you should observe whether the glass has waves or ripples in it. Usually you will find that most sash windows are between 120 to 180 years old and the more ripples there are, or the more shimmer the glass may appear to have, the more likely it is to be an original.

Problems to consider with sash windows may include the need for additional security, as the original window will have a minimal catch system on the mid rail, which closes and pulls the mid rail together. You may also encounter droughts from air coming in around the window frame, rattling of the window on a windy day and disturbance from external noise. Much of this is caused by the tolerance around the frames that allow them to function properly. Therefore, you may consider replacing the frames at some stage, but that would be replacement rather than restoration, which is really what you should be aiming for.

Restoration techniques for any aspect of your property needs to be very gentle so that the old and valuable materials originally used are not damaged in your effort to clean or maintain them. Using chemicals to clean surfaces would be too harsh and abrasive; sometimes the scratches in wood, for instance, are very deep and clearly not just superficial. Removing these scratches requires an expert touch, along with the appropriate tools. For example, there are ways to gently clean masonry (along with stone statues in the garden area) by projecting very fine powders with low-pressure compressed air. This is an effective method that requires professional execution and the result is a cleaned and restored item of beauty, which has not been damaged in the process.