apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I grew up in a heritage listed home, and it was impossible to do anything inside or out, and the reason for this is captured in the photos above. Whilst it is nice to modernise an older house on the inside, this place has been stripped of character and heritage. The only thing left of any history is a facade. It reduces the whole place to a kind of pastiche.

I have the chance and...to thy old home be true.
But I must have a dishwasher, 5 10" - 6' with dark hair and dreamy eyes.

I don't know. It IS Pretty. And there ARE a lot of restored Victorian's out there already. It's not like this is the only old house in SF.

However, I wonder if it's going to look like crap in a few years, you know, like SOOOOOO 2009. Like the things that were redone in the 70s and 80s that we have such disdain for now because they were ruined.

Personally I would have restored the original details like the fireplaces and the bathrooms (maybe, to a degree) but updated stuff like the lighting and floor plan (not as much as they did).

It needs to make sense for living in the 21st century but still keep to the original integrity and authenticity of the time it was built.

Really? I like it like this. They could have kept crown moulding though.

I love it. Preserving historical detail in homes is so 2009. ;)

I would have to call this an historic facade.

LOL nothinlikeadame !

Beautiful exterior, painfully boring interior...I guess that is okay, though, since the lot of us will only be seeing the outside. Still a shame, though, if you want bland "modern" why not just move into one of the numerous new bland developments popping up all over the city?

Do these people roll from room to room?

LOL, we live in Alamo Square too... and our place definitely has all it's old historical detail... except in the kitchen and bathroom, freshly redone in hideous 2007 granite and stainless. Not practical, not pretty, and I wince to think of the original subway tile and enameled fixtures they probably replaced. It's pretty painful, but we decided to tolerate it for the rest of the (beautiful) apartment and the convenient location. Trust me, the original details stand the test of time muuuuuuch better than makeovers like this one!

6000 square feet of boring...

Speaking as someone who lives in an updated Victorian in Alamo Square... I think it's fine to do some updating as long as you keep the spirit of the home intact. I agree that perhaps they went a bit far with the recessed lighting and removing the crown molding, but honestly? This place looks nice and clean but manages to retain a lot of the warmth from being an old home. If I lived there, I might put down some more rugs and fill the rooms a bit more so it doesn't look quite so sparse.

See, the problem with Victorians is that while they're pretty to look at, they can be difficult to live in. The rooms are tiny and poorly laid out and the fixtures are ancient and crumbling. I think the key is to update the functionality and clean up the aesthetic so it's not AS ornate, but still keep the details that give the place a sense of history.

I think our landlords managed to do a pretty good job of balancing old with new when they updated our apartment. They kept all the crown and picture molding. The light fixtures are kinda cheesy home depot style (sigh, renting), but they kept the beautiful, probably hand-carved... things (pendants?) on the ceiling above them. Different one for each room. There's embossed wallpaper in the hallway, but not too much to be overwhelmingly rococo. They kept these vertical wooden slats in the living room to add more interest. The interior doors and their knobs/locks are all original (I love the doorknobs), including a large pocket door between the two front rooms.

One major renovation they did was knock out the wall between the kitchen and the living room. I have to say, this was absolutely the right thing to do. Now instead of having a tiny cramped galley kitchen, it has a large kitchen with an island that we cook and eat at, and you can be in the kitchen while still conversing with your guests in the living room. Small, poorly laid out kitchens are the bane of old apartments. I just wish our landlords had chosen granite or a smooth tile; this travertine crap, while pretty, is impossible to get clean...

tink777 I completely agree. If that is what one likes go get a new loft SOMA.

Looks like a West Elm catalog.