Restoration/Renovation Book Recommendations

[domus48]

All-

I'm seeking recommendations for books or information sources pretaining to construction techniques, historic renovation of MCM homes, etc. As I'm sure you are well aware, the internet is vast and search engines can only achieve so much -- often too much by way of unspecific or unrelated information.

Perhaps I'm overly optimistic but there must be comprehensive source material on this topic. If not, it's a hunt and peck effort -- gleaning usful info here and there. Period books can be helpful but construction technology and methodology has come a ways since then.

Hope to hear from some of you.

Thanks in advance!

I will post my findings as they may be of value to some of you.

[texasdago]

I would go post a message on www.LottaLiving.com/bb or visit the Eichler Homes web page. They have a message board, too.

[domus48]

" would go post a message on www.LottaLiving.com/bb or visit the Eichler Homes web page. They have a message board, too."

Good call... I've been to both of those site and they are well done.

[Willowisp]

We ran into a few items where "they don't make them like that anymore", which were very frustrating, but overall our contractor was able to work around it. Our redwood siding comes to mind. He was not able to find the exact size, but he found something very close. You can only tell if I tell you exactly where the old stuff ends and the new begins. Another item was the corners of the walls. Since there's no moulding in the house except for what I think is called quarter round (or square) along the floors there were aluminum strips on the corners. Those aren't made anymore and a sub contractor accidentally threw one of the strips from a door jam out on the first day. They were able to figure something out, but it made the head contractor much more cautious about throwing anything out.

I would love to have known Charles Burgess when we were restoring the house. I don't know if he could be hired as a consultant or would just lend his expertise for the fun of it. He is one of the few architects that is left in Houston from those days and he was in the same office with Floyd and Jenkins. William Stern is also another expert that would be able to write a guide like you're talking about, especially from a restoration perspective.

All that said, our house pretty much presented itself like any other 50's ranch with some idiosyncracies, so it wasn't too difficult for a contractor of today to see what needed to be done. One thing I did seem to find difficult though was finding good light fixtures. I really wanted silver cylinders that matched the one or 2 originals we have, but I couldn't find them so we had to go with white. The white ones do go very well in the house though. Another thing was that many of the fixtures at Home Depot or Lowe's use florescent lighting and have plastic covers instead of glass. So for some of our lights you can tell they are new. But all of that is when you look really hard... I suppose if you wanted to spend the time and money you could get the original stuff though. There are just places we chose to cut a corner here and there.

I agree on lottaliving. They were extremely helpful and encouraging to me and kept me sane through the process.

Hope this helps, and keep us updated on your project.

Jason

" would go post a message on www.LottaLiving.com/bb or visit the Eichler Homes web page. They have a message board, too."

Good call... I've been to both of those site and they are well done.

[domus48]

Thanks Jason.