The "greenest" building materials are the ones you preserve instead of replacing. I spent a week carefully removing bathroom tiles to re-install after a wall repair was done. It was white swans on blue water mixed with deep green and yellow waterlilies and field tiles of blue or green.
So agree on the value of natural wood finishes. It is also in its own way a connection to nature which helps keep us grounded and in touch with our true selves. Painting it all white is alienating.
Grey ain't Nordic. We do like off white for our walls to emphasize the furniture here in Scandinavia, but we have more than plenty of grey weather as it is.
Same. When they pull the porcelain tile out- it hurts. I love the tilted cabinets in bathrooms & in kitchens- the avocado wall ovens- the retro planters in the dining rooms & entryways … it’s so hard to see the ‘updates’ done to spaces that cry out for a revamp and not an overhaul.
I will never understand people who remove all the charm and character from a beautiful old home in the name of trends they saw on cable TV decorating shows. I don’t understand ripping up hardwood floors to replace with plastic floors and ripping out real wood paneling to replace with bland boring drywall. It cost us $5K to repair and refinish 1900 sq ft of wood floors in our mid-century house. It would’ve cost much more than that to replace with cheap looking laminate or LVP. HGTV and Joanna Gaines has rendered American homebuyers blind to the distinctive charm and beauty of older homes. Please make it stop, before they ruin more beautiful homes!
I hired the one lone contractor for a kitchen renovation who appreciated the original charming details of our 1950s fixer upper, and did not dare to suggest that we “open it up” by removing the wall between the kitchen and living room which has a double-sided brick fireplace and knotty pine tongue-and-groove paneling in the breakfast nook. Who wants a house that looks like all those ubiquitous, boring, bland, gray-and-white-everywhere with unnatural gray toned “wood”(plastic) flooring from tacky HGTV shows when they already have a distinctive older home with charm and character? American homeowners who buy older homes should be better educated about architecture and preservation before embarking on home renovation. Rely on historic references and actual tastemakers, not Joanna Gaines or a Property Brother, please.
I am fortunate to have bought a 110+ year old timber home and am keeping the 6 inch red mahogany (painted) T&G wall and ceiling boards and re-using what I got from removing two walls to line the new kitchen. I've seen similar re-done in plasterboards and it destroys the home IMO. It's also zero material cost to reuse original material. With the 6 inch tallowood floors, two rooms had been pro-finished and are not at all to my taste as they look too new. The remaining rooms have the central clear part where the vinyl would have been and the outsides are painted in "Japan black" as I was told by a pro floorer. I'm going the manual route of paint stripping, light acid wash, soft wire brush, 150 grit hand sand then tung oil so I keep all the character and saw marks and don't have to split the boards at butt joins by punching nails down by 3-4 mm. No way am I pulling out the (unusable) Victorian arched cast iron fireplace!
Too late, I paint over my hardwood windows ( white) and I am sorry, I did that. However , the outside I painted black, this decision makes me happy ❤❤❤
I live in a home that is over 80yrs old, with a non-functional fireplace, made of brick. I want to clean the brick, but I don't know what I should use. Do you have any suggestions, I don't want to paint it. I really prefer older homes and want to keep the large moldings, as well as the fireplace the way it is.
Great video! Thanks so much. For years my wife and I have been talking about a built in oak wood bookcase that the previous owners had installed around the fireplace. We find the wall too dark and keep thinking we should paint it white, but we hate the idea of painting a nice solid wood shelving system. Good to know we’re not crazy for thinking that. 😀 Now if only we could find a nicer way to lighten up that wall.
Get a professional carpenter is my advice. It can have a lot of different expressions from the lightest wood to almost black and all the colours in between such as yellow, red and many more and where you can still see and feel the woodstructure. You basically have to sand it down with minimum grit 180 (220) at the end. You can start with 120 or 80 but be carefull. The last step will be oil, soap, beewax or an laquer finish.
Depending on how you are using it, you could add wallpaper or material (or tiles, mirror etc) to the back wall of the shelving, by cutting a thin board to size of each shelf applying the paper/material to those and slotting into place. Easy to change out if you want to go back to the plain shelves or refresh.
That's weird. I feel like YT has been acting up with this a lot lately. There are two videos at the end (from my yt studio here, I just double checked), but somehow it doesn't show for some people. May I ask what device/browser are you watching on? I need to bring this up with YT support.
I bought a late 60s/early 70s apartment that's never been renovated and it had a beautiful 70s wooden trim around the arch separating my living room from my study. I wanted to leave it, but the boss of my reno crew told me it'd look bad if I left it in the fully renovated space, and I unfortunately listened to him. Yeah it had a bit of a dated stain color, but nothing some sanding and restaining wouldn't fix. Not to mention they remade that arch in an extremely wonky drywall, and I have to stare at this unevenness everyday. It's torture.
I absolutely hate Entstuckung. In Germany, and neighbouring countries they have a nasty habit of replacing stained windows, hide Fachwerk, mosaics, and even expensive wall paintings, tapestry, and wall decors both inside and outside.
We are the second owners of our 1960s bungalow and removing the original tiles would mean releasing a whole bunch of asbestos 😅. They were ugly and and were already covered in equally awful linoleum, so we ripped up the linoleum and put faux-wood laminate on top. 8 years later I have 0 regrets. 😊
Modernising a space? Painting it white, removing all character. To make a bland featureless room that looks like a laboratory. Bland room? For bland people.
The "greenest" building materials are the ones you preserve instead of replacing. I spent a week carefully removing bathroom tiles to re-install after a wall repair was done. It was white swans on blue water mixed with deep green and yellow waterlilies and field tiles of blue or green.
Thanks Raymond. Too many people don't understand what they're buying or understand the importance of quality and craftsmanship.
*Reynard
I am more into simple living. It's amazing how far a little taste and best-buy policy can take you. Invest the surplus into life other than stuff.
@@juli1037 i like that
The best video of an architect's advice I've ever seen. Thank you very much Reynard!
So agree on the value of natural wood finishes. It is also in its own way a connection to nature which helps keep us grounded and in touch with our true selves. Painting it all white is alienating.
I cry a little every time I see videos or photos of old homes with unique designs turned into modern "nordic" white & grey boxes 😩
Agreed
Grey ain't Nordic. We do like off white for our walls to emphasize the furniture here in Scandinavia, but we have more than plenty of grey weather as it is.
I saw a short where a lady replaced this gorgeous, dramatic, curvy oak staircase with a bland, boxy, white one and I almost screamed. It was horrid.
Same. When they pull the porcelain tile out- it hurts. I love the tilted cabinets in bathrooms & in kitchens- the avocado wall ovens- the retro planters in the dining rooms & entryways … it’s so hard to see the ‘updates’ done to spaces that cry out for a revamp and not an overhaul.
I will never understand people who remove all the charm and character from a beautiful old home in the name of trends they saw on cable TV decorating shows. I don’t understand ripping up hardwood floors to replace with plastic floors and ripping out real wood paneling to replace with bland boring drywall. It cost us $5K to repair and refinish 1900 sq ft of wood floors in our mid-century house. It would’ve cost much more than that to replace with cheap looking laminate or LVP. HGTV and Joanna Gaines has rendered American homebuyers blind to the distinctive charm and beauty of older homes. Please make it stop, before they ruin more beautiful homes!
This is your best video❤. We retained the original wood in our home, even though contractors tried to get us to remove it.😢.
I hired the one lone contractor for a kitchen renovation who appreciated the original charming details of our 1950s fixer upper, and did not dare to suggest that we “open it up” by removing the wall between the kitchen and living room which has a double-sided brick fireplace and knotty pine tongue-and-groove paneling in the breakfast nook. Who wants a house that looks like all those ubiquitous, boring, bland, gray-and-white-everywhere with unnatural gray toned “wood”(plastic) flooring from tacky HGTV shows when they already have a distinctive older home with charm and character? American homeowners who buy older homes should be better educated about architecture and preservation before embarking on home renovation. Rely on historic references and actual tastemakers, not Joanna Gaines or a Property Brother, please.
Re the sponsor: ergonomics is my day job. That is a good chair 👍
I love my homes original woodwork.
I am fortunate to have bought a 110+ year old timber home and am keeping the 6 inch red mahogany (painted) T&G wall and ceiling boards and re-using what I got from removing two walls to line the new kitchen. I've seen similar re-done in plasterboards and it destroys the home IMO. It's also zero material cost to reuse original material. With the 6 inch tallowood floors, two rooms had been pro-finished and are not at all to my taste as they look too new. The remaining rooms have the central clear part where the vinyl would have been and the outsides are painted in "Japan black" as I was told by a pro floorer. I'm going the manual route of paint stripping, light acid wash, soft wire brush, 150 grit hand sand then tung oil so I keep all the character and saw marks and don't have to split the boards at butt joins by punching nails down by 3-4 mm. No way am I pulling out the (unusable) Victorian arched cast iron fireplace!
Too late, I paint over my hardwood windows ( white) and I am sorry, I did that.
However , the outside I painted black, this decision makes me happy ❤❤❤
I just wish people would appreciate the beauty and craftsmanship of old homes
My 70s house has been moderniserad by previous owners. So my project now is trying to take back some 70s and mix it with more contemporary
Still obsessed with my steel case chair you recommended 😍
I live in a home that is over 80yrs old, with a non-functional fireplace, made of brick. I want to clean the brick, but I don't know what I should use. Do you have any suggestions, I don't want to paint it. I really prefer older homes and want to keep the large moldings, as well as the fireplace the way it is.
I agree, leave the hardwood floors and stained glass windows ALONE!! They have so much charm & character!
Breaks my heart when I see people buy older homes and they take out the charm out of it and replace it with bland modern designs.
I'm trying to work around the dark wood in my urban apartment while being modern but its a struggle for me!
Great video. Thanks
Great video! Thanks so much. For years my wife and I have been talking about a built in oak wood bookcase that the previous owners had installed around the fireplace. We find the wall too dark and keep thinking we should paint it white, but we hate the idea of painting a nice solid wood shelving system. Good to know we’re not crazy for thinking that. 😀 Now if only we could find a nicer way to lighten up that wall.
Get a professional carpenter is my advice.
It can have a lot of different expressions from the lightest wood to almost black and all the colours in between such as yellow, red and many more and where you can still see and feel the woodstructure.
You basically have to sand it down with minimum grit 180 (220) at the end. You can start with 120 or 80 but be carefull. The last step will be oil, soap, beewax or an laquer finish.
Depending on how you are using it, you could add wallpaper or material (or tiles, mirror etc) to the back wall of the shelving, by cutting a thin board to size of each shelf applying the paper/material to those and slotting into place. Easy to change out if you want to go back to the plain shelves or refresh.
There are no links to videos at the end.
That's weird. I feel like YT has been acting up with this a lot lately. There are two videos at the end (from my yt studio here, I just double checked), but somehow it doesn't show for some people.
May I ask what device/browser are you watching on? I need to bring this up with YT support.
@ IPad, Chrome in mobile view, not app. This does happen in other channels too.
I hate when people tear up hardwoods
is that black dresser ikea shaker?
Do people really rip out hardwood floors for vinyl? And rip out molding?
That stunned me too.
I bought a late 60s/early 70s apartment that's never been renovated and it had a beautiful 70s wooden trim around the arch separating my living room from my study. I wanted to leave it, but the boss of my reno crew told me it'd look bad if I left it in the fully renovated space, and I unfortunately listened to him. Yeah it had a bit of a dated stain color, but nothing some sanding and restaining wouldn't fix. Not to mention they remade that arch in an extremely wonky drywall, and I have to stare at this unevenness everyday. It's torture.
I’ve always thought knotty pine was beautiful but I get that people might find it overpowering.
I absolutely hate Entstuckung. In Germany, and neighbouring countries they have a nasty habit of replacing stained windows, hide Fachwerk, mosaics, and even expensive wall paintings, tapestry, and wall decors both inside and outside.
Unfortunately, it’s happening everywhere.
If you think it's a good idea to rip all that stuffs from your home, you don't deserve that house
We are the second owners of our 1960s bungalow and removing the original tiles would mean releasing a whole bunch of asbestos 😅. They were ugly and and were already covered in equally awful linoleum, so we ripped up the linoleum and put faux-wood laminate on top. 8 years later I have 0 regrets. 😊
Modernising a space? Painting it white, removing all character. To make a bland featureless room that looks like a laboratory. Bland room? For bland people.
It's a shame that any of this even has to be said.
Yo what’s wrong with pine? Pine has so much more character than something like white oak, which is nice but so boring.