Have A Little Respect For Your Historic Home

When you move into a new build home, the chances are that you’re the first owner in what’s effectively a blank canvas. By comparison, older properties come complete with rich histories and have likely had multiple owners who have loved, looked after, and generally helped that property to shine. As such, you might not want to go quite as crazy splashing new-age ideas all over the place. 

After all, even if they aren’t listed, older properties have a certain charm that lends them personalities of their own. If you move in and instantly go against that, then you’re never going to achieve the looks you want or the harmonious living setup you desire. You would be far better off respecting your elders, as it were, by taking the time to learn the rhythms of your historic home, and how best your style can fit within that rather than over it. 

Luckily, as the countless young people now moving into traditional properties are proving, it’s entirely possible to achieve this goal and still get the home you want. Here, we consider just a few of the ways to help you get your historic home onside and looking great in the process. 

# 1 – Opt for compromise rather than replacement

If you move straight into a traditional property and replace all of those classic features with new additions then you’re soon going to end up with a mishmash of a home. Worse, charging in like this on a listed property risks fines and the requirement to put everything back as it was. 

The solution? Approach this project with compromise rather than replacement in mind. This is a far better way to honour what your home has but still ensure what you want, and should include considerations like double glazing that works with existing windows rather than against them, as offered by secondary glazing manufacturers, new, classing-looking window arches in place of open plan living, and so on. This is then guaranteed to bring your home together far sooner than your attempts might otherwise. 

# 2 – Uncover unloved features

While some properties have been perfectly preserved and looked after, others have covered over fireplaces, wooden or stone flooring that’s been carpeted over, and even beams that have been painted either white or dark. 

Uncovering these unloved features can significantly help your home to look the part and should be easy enough to achieve in even listed properties as it counts towards reverting to the original condition. Even better, while some specialist renovation might be necessary for things like traditional fireplaces, it should be relatively easy to achieve impact this way considering that the features are ready and waiting, you just need to uncover, sand, and treat them to bring them back to their former glory. 

# 3 – Choose sympathetic decor styles

There’s nothing to say that modern designs like minimalism can’t work in a traditional home – they can and there are some great examples of this out there. That said, going too futuristic or modern with decor choices could again end up with a mishmash of styles that don’t quite work. 

As such, your best possible option at the decor stages is to choose styles that best complement a traditional setup, like cottage chic implemented through flowery wallpaper, well-chosen ornaments, and so on. If you do want to strip things back a little more, then make sure that you’re sympathetically implementing modern styles, using minimalism to highlight those traditional features and so on. 

# 4 – Tread carefully when tampering with exteriors

Many people go wrong when trying to perfect the exteriors of traditional properties, and this sadly isn’t an easy issue to cover or rectify when it goes wrong. Hence, you should always tread carefully when doing anything to the exteriors of an older home, considering the appearances of the other houses around you, and always leaning on what’s there instead of covering up the things that make your home what it is.

Obviously, homeowners in a period property or a property within a conservation area are going to have guidance in this sense, but otherwise, it’s vital to consider the restoration and preservation of things like traditional stonework, classic wooden doors, and, as touched on above, classic windows like sash and stone mullion designs that often provide these properties with their attractive appearances in the first place. 

Perfecting a historic home can be incredibly rewarding. You simply need to make sure that you’re getting things right by keeping these pointers in mind.