So you’ve purchased a historic property and now you’re looking to restore it to its former glory. Visions of a beautifully preserved piece of history dance in your head as you settle into your new home. But when the time comes to start your first big project, you run into an unexpected roadblock. And another… and another…
Historic restoration is an admirable initiative. Preserving the character and personality of your home – whether it’s been around for 50 or 150 years – is an important step to take. That said, for the inexperienced or unprepared, historic restoration can also be a huge pain, and can lead to headaches, frustration, and blown budgets.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at four of the biggest challenges that can crop up with any restoration project.
1. Availability of Documentation
Depending on the location of your home, the care the previous owners took, and the information handed down over the years, one of the first things you’ll find is that your home doesn’t come with an instruction manual. This can make restoration a challenge if the original floor plans, architectural renderings, and even photographs aren’t available for your use during the planning process.
A secondary issue that comes along with this challenge is the fact that in order to keep your home structurally sound and safe to inhabit, you and your restoration team might have to dig a little deeper to uncover and secure the bones of your house, which can up your budget significantly. This is especially true if your home has been subject to one or more natural disasters over the years without proper treatment.
2. Unconventional Wisdom
Prior to the implementation of industry codes and standards for construction, each home was treated as a unique case – and that resulted in plenty of creative techniques and problem-solving that wouldn’t fly in today’s heavily regulated world. Accounting for these innovative and sometimes unusual solutions may require some expensive fixes, including a substantially more detailed analysis and evaluation during the planning phase.
3. Form Versus Function
One of the biggest challenges that comes along with each decision made during the restoration project is whether a choice made to save historically significant characteristics is compliant with the rigorous demands for safety within your home. Particularly when it comes to the structural elements of the home, preservation may sometimes take a backseat to the integrity of the house as a whole.
4. Unexpected Consequences
When push comes to shove, buying a historic home is like playing a game of Press Your Luck – you spin the wheel and hope to avoid the heartache that comes with a Whammy. Unfortunately, simple restoration projects can uncover larger problems that need to be addressed, usually for safety reasons. As a result, total project costs can escalate quickly due to unforeseen circumstances.