Recently we received the Webster Groves Historic Preservation Award of Excellence and a Special Award for Craftsmanship.  The project which took these honors was a complete home remodel which started in June of 2003.  This is what it looked like several days after closing the sale:

As you can plainly see from the pictures above, this house was in desperate need of more than just a coat of paint.  It was not a good sign when several days before closing, the ceiling of the living room collapsed from years of water damage and compromised joists.  No, this project was going to involve every single aspect of the house.  A short list of critical areas includes:

·        reframing the entire first, second, and third floor (including the floor joists themselves)

·        replumbing and rewiring the entire house

·        sandblasting 70 years of paint from the exterior stucco

·        replacing the tile roof

·        piering the foundation and lowering the basement 3 feet

·        regrading the entire lot to better manage drainage.

 
The first thing that we had to do was uncover the house from years of neglected landscaping.  From the street, you could only see a small corner of the house, and what dominated the view was a massive pine tree that has been estimated at around 90 years old.

In the picture on the right, that is the view out of a second floor window on he back of the house.  In the backyard, while clearing brush, we discovered a multi-tiered garden bordered with short granite cobblestone walls and paths.   In its heyday, it would have been a sight to see. 

The original color of this house was white.  The only way that we could determine that was by sandblasting the entire house, stripping off several layers of paint from the stucco and brick details.

Every single brick on the exterior had to be replaced.   The sandblasting revealed that the brick had suffered extensive damage from moisture trapped behind the many layers of paint.  Each and every brick was so soft that you could dig them out with a finger.

As you can see, a great deal of attention was being paid to maintaining the original look of this house.  By using modern materials, we could insure a long life of low maintenance exterior finished for a house that was built in 1924.  We applied a new stucco layer over the original stucco after repairs were made.  We retained the original look of the half-timbering on the second story by using a PVC product to mimic the timbers and infilled the spaces with stucco.  The result is an exterior finish that is virtually impervious to decay and breathes and performs like a masonry wall should.