|
Connect:
- Free Newsletter
- Old-House Forums
Suppliers:
- Bathroom Products
- Building Exterior Materials & Facade Components
- Building Interior Materials & Architectural Elements
- Furniture, Finishings & Accessories
- Hardware & Architectural Metals
- Kitchen Products
- Lighting,Parts
- Lumber & Sheet Goods
- Masonry Materials & Accessories
- Misc. Building Materials
- Outdoor Equipment & Materials
- Paints, Coatings, Sealants, Cleaners & Sundries
- PlasterMaterials & Accessories
- Professional Services & Contracting
- Roofing,Guttering & Related Products
- Salvage & Architectural Antiques
- Service Systems
- Technology Systems
- Tools,Craft Materials, Safety Equipment
- Windows,Doors, Millwork
- Other Misc. Products
|
Old-House Journal
Magazine Index
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
Where the Past Meets the Present
By Allen Charles Hill
|
|
A sound preservation plan helps a project proceed based on knowledge of the building and reason, rather than momentum, impulse, or uninformed panic. Photo Courtesy of Brian McNeill
|
No three things control a house restoration more than budget, structure, and time. Many an ambitious project has been curtailed by cost or by the design challenges of the existing building. That's why, right from the start, you should know as much as possible about your house's past and present condition to help determine the scope of the project's plans, your budget, and your own capacity for being involved in the work.
A Little Planning Help from History
Before treating a patient, a doctor takes a history and performs a physical exam to help determine what needs to be dealt with. A Historic Structures Report fills a similar function when an individual or other owner wants to work on an old building. Historic Structures Reports (also called preservation plans or HSRs for short) come in all sizes, from one-page outline summaries to many-volume documents. All of these reports, however, have the following items in common:
- A historical summary of the building as an object existing through time that sets the context for the remainder of the report. When was it built? What happened between then and now? What is significant about this building?
- A description of the building's form and fabric. How is it laid out? What does it look like now? What did it used to look like? What is its architectural style? Of what is it made?
- A description of its existing condition. What needs attention (repair, restoration, reconstruction, adaptation, continued monitoring, further research) and why?
- A description of the work needed in order to return the building to a stable, standard condition and to accomplish what the owner wants to do with the building.
- Priorities for doing work. Most buildings can absorb more work than their owners can fund at once, so it is necessary to organize the work by priority. Critical work must be done as soon as possible because the building is at risk; necessary work also must be done but not as quickly; elective work includes any work that lacks the urgency of the first two categories.
When dollars are scarce, it's easy to say, My project doesn't need a preservation plan. This is rarely true. A His-toric Structures Report should pay for itself many times over in a more coherent project undertaken with fewer false starts, less backtracking, and less damage to the building and your wallet.
Balancing Additions and Extensions
Ultimately, in any construction project, your wallet holds sway. A project may vary from the small and simple to the enormous and elaborate. As for the budget, there are costs below which nothing useful can be built and above which you cannot afford to spend. Most of us are more flexible in our needs and desires than in the amount of money we can spend. The result is that few building projects go ahead as originally envisioned.
In working with old buildings, the existing structure complicates matters further by establishing an aesthetic or spatial standard for the new work. Consider the common situation in which an owner wants to increase the size of a building. When constructing an enclosure that is obviously an addition to a building rather than an extension of an existing design, the owner can probably accomplish the addition for a relatively small sum of money. It's also likely that an addition's exterior appearance will not be sensitive to what is already there. With little or no consideration of what the building looks like or what it's made of, the result is nothing more than a collision of two objects. To design such a simple box requires minimal time and no investigation of the existing building beyond taking a few basic dimensions.
On the other hand, a carefully designed extension that enhances the existing building in a manner compatible with its original design will cost more. Before the design process can begin, it will be necessary to measure, sketch, and photograph the existing building, and to prepare drawings to scale. The design process itself will take more time to arrive at a solution that meets the owner's needs and respects the appearance of the existing building. And once the design is settled, the actual construction may well cost more, because there will be more to construct and its execution will require more care. Whichever way you go, determining if the results will justify the additional time and cost of extending a building, rather than merely adding to it, will be one of the most important decisions you'll make before you embark on a project.
On Being Your Own G.C.
Whether it's realistic for you to manage the project yourself is another matter. As a preservation architect, I often have clients who ask, Couldn't I save money by acting as my own general contractor? The answer is maybe, but it won't be a free ride. One of the most important functions of a contractor is coordinating the different workers and subcontractors so that they do their work exactly on cue in a wonderfully complex choreography. Miss a beat and delays can cascade down the line, with a one-day slip mushrooming into a weeks-late finished product.
Unless you have previous building experience, you may not be sure which trades will be needed when, and even if you are, getting workers to arrive at the job on time may be a challenge. You just won't have the clout of the general contractor working on the other side of town if both of you need, say, the plumber at the same time. After all, the general contractor is a source of repeat business, while you are almost certainly a one-shot proposition.
So, yes, you could save money, but your lack of experience also could end up costing money. You'll have to spend time on the project, and your time has value. In more cases than not, paying a contractor to manage the job will be money well spent.
Allen Charles Hill, AIA, writes from Woburn, Massachusetts (home.att.net/~allen.hill.historic.preservation/).
Start a discussion on this article in our old-house forum!
Subscribe to our email newsletter!
|
|
|
|
|
|
