Quote:
Originally Posted by look 171
I rebuilt a Greene and Greene about 14 years ago that was in similar condition. The area turned into a rat hole and the owner rented to a lot of people all living in there at the same time. New owner bought it during early stage of gentrification and hired us to redo it. Fun, but lost lots of hair over it due to the historical folks getting in the way.
After so many years I still get a little excited restoring a mess like that. A project like that must have the right crew who like taking apart the little sihts, rebuilt them and putting them back. Not many trades guys like to do that. If that house was in LA, once restored, it would be sold within a couple weeks.
Hey, I know, sell a couple of early cars and sink it into it and drain your bank account too.
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by look 171
Those fukers came out and begged me to let them be involve. I pushed back with a vengeance. I want them off my tail but they kept telling me that my company name will be in this and that publications. Screw that, but the dumb ass owner's wife wanted fame so they let em' in to document the built. I researched so much about those architects and did as much as I can out of my shop to build windows and a couple of simple doors. Still I can't seem to satisfy them. They complained about the thickness of the door casing and base board. They btiched about the metal drawer slides instead of old fashion wood on wood slides  . We bought 4/4" stock and ripped the to a specific width to match, but those guys wanted a true 7/8" instead of 3/4" so they gave me a hard time. I said, if you are willing to pay for it, fine, I can mill out whatever will make them smile, by then the owner was tired of them so we stuck with 3/4" base and case. WE changed out the typical turn of the century faucet to a modern one. One that you can actually use. The old was a hot faucet on the left, another on the right. Not very user friendly. This older lady caught that and was just about had a siht fit over it. She demanded that I have those siht#y faucets rebuilt and re-chrome. What a bunch of jobless, useless people. I don't think any of those guys any mentioned my name anywhere. Thank goodness for that or else all the nut jobs will be calling me to fix their leaking turn of the century toilets or their period correct switch.
Keep em' away as far as you can |
With all due respect, you don't sound like the guy who should be working on a house like that. There are many diffrerent areas of trade and specialization within the construction industry and while you may be good at what you normally do, this is the work for restoration specialists. Restoration is very different from construction; one builds new things and the other fixes and restores old things. I have always found that very few people in construction understand anything about restoration or even value it.
A G&G house is like an old Ferrari or a Pre-A 356, if I had to use an automotive analogy. Just as most people who work on cars for a living have no respect for originality and simply replace parts or think that they are "improving" an old car w modifications, most old Craftsman and architecturally significant houses have been ruined over the years by modification. Plenty of old cars that were special as well.
This is why truly original C2 Corvettes or G&G houses that somehow have escaped the butcher's hand are so valuable. Sorry for all of the car comparisons but houses and cars are both obsessions of mine and I am a restoration guy. The right person to work on either would have no issue w preservation people and in fact would go to the ends of the earth to keep things correct. If I told you the stories of searching architectural salvage yards for old windows to harvest glass from for a 1915 house project in Minneapolis, (glass from the later 1920s or 30s will not do, they changed the manufacturing process), you would think I'm crazy. You would not understand.
I have an acquaintance here in Los Angeles that is the pre-eminent guy for restoring Lautner houses. Not coincidentally, he owns several concours level collector sports and racing cars that he regularly drives. A mint, original '73 Carrera RS is probably the least valuable and most mundane of his cars. He understands and reveres the craftsmanship and artistry of a bygone era of construction and design. No detail is too small in his projects.
There are jobs for everyone when it comes to housing around here w the demand.