Finding/Matching Historic Casing/Details
so for the doors. i ordered some five panel pine doors from Rogue Valley Doors through Dykes about 15 years ago. I seem to recall going to Dykes and asking about Rogue Valley about ten years back and they said they no longer order from them.
Upstate Door is another option. I have called them and spoken to them to be sure i was comfortable recommending them on here. there is also a company called Historic Doors and they are in western NY or Pennsy.
also, you can find other smaller shop located say in Pennsy or upstate or even toward ohio and they can custom make product and ship if for less than we can make it here. i used to order doors from a place in Iowa. I would give you the name if i could even recall it but i think they folded (i honestly believe they were selling a serious quality product for too little money and i think they could not make it work out financially).
So whenever i order doors from a shop, i order “shaker” doors. That is doors that have no trim in them around the panels. then i either make my own trim or go to Lenoble and buy panel trim or small base cap and i cut and install in the door. It gives a more authentic look to doors that would have been manufactured prior to the advent of modern machinery that cut the molding as part of the structure of the door (machinery that came into common use circa 1920).
If you were to post pictures, many of us would know real fast what is older and what is not. the older trim has more bulk to it and is made in ways that modern, high speed machines and knives cannot cut.
Brownstone Home Inspection
in Renovation 10 hrs ago
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smileyface | 2 days ago
I am trying to add some historic casing and details that would be specific to my type of home. Everyone home I see has different style of floors, casing, interior doors, etc.
Is there a way to find out what details my specific home had? (Without going into neighbors)
Thanks
maggie.oldfather | 2 days ago
look at current or even old real estate listings for homes near yours! you might find pics that will show you what you’re looking for.
Brownstone Home Inspection | 1 day ago
it is going to be hard to find these details off the shelf without having them custom replicated (which can be done if you have samples of moldings; adriatic does this). Dykes, Adriatic, and Lenoble lumber stock moldings that are based on historic profiles but will most likely not be exact matches. It also seems every builder used something different – so you may have four houses in a row with a particular profile but the next four are different.
if you cannot view real estate listings like maggie.oldfather suggests, consider this: the finish details of these houses vary not simply by period but also by the class of the intended occupants when it was built and size. so a larger house might have larger casements around the doors and windows. And no offense to current owners, but the older (by older i mean predating the brownstone period) and smaller houses down by say the gowanus canal or over closer to the waterfront (before water front living became trendy and when it was still heavily industrial), or off broadway in bushwick (where my cash strapped ancestors lived in the latter half of the 19th century) were intended for workers who lived nearby, and would have had moldings a bit smaller or simpler than those in brownstone period houses in Bed Sty, Park Slope, and the upper east or west side of manhattan and harlem.
If you house is smaller with smaller rooms, i would be careful not to use moldings that are too big. It will look our of proportion and make the rooms look smaller. 1920s queens houses often have a flat piece of trim with a backband around windows. keep this in mind too, often moldings are made up out or two or three pieces of wood as opposed to one single piece. say a base molding with a base cap. or a two part crown.
The details varied by floor in the houses built in the brownstone period (not so much in the previous period where things were still more utilitarian and not after the brownstone period in 1920s queens where i live). the grandest floor in the brownstone period would be the parlor floor where the finest moldings and wood were with the doors being possibly made of mahogany and much thicker with blind tenons. Go to the garden level, where the help worked, and we would find thin pine doors with exposed tenons. Go up a level up to the floor above the parlor and the trim could be poplar. And the top floor in the bigger brownstones was where the help lived and those doors became thinner pine with open tenons.
something else to know, not all wood was stained. early on, it was painted pine. look at photos of the manor houses in england. Most of the wood is painted. that is because in a certain period, only the wealthy could afford paint so the wood was actually locally source softwood and this was painted and this was done as a display of wealth. this thing of staining woods came out in the brownstone period as we began to import better woods from far away lands. Most pine does not stain well. Some old growth does but even some old pine found in old houses is less than desirable.
There are books out there that may have photos. The Charles Lockwood book. there is another one and i might have it here but do not have time now to dig it out and share the title. Also, Jacob Riis might have some photos from some of his work that show more working class or tenement houses.
sjdv | 1 day ago
In addition to what Maggie and Steve suggest – If you know the actual era of construction of your house (not the almost always wrong date listed by the city) that will help with your research. While they can’t tell you exactly what was in your house, there are plenty of historic millwork catalogues and pattern books that have been digitized and can give you some idea of what was popular at a given time . Many are available at archive.org – here is one from the 1850s for instance https://archive.org/details/cataloguebrookly00broo/page/10/mode/2up and one from the 1880s https://archive.org/details/specialeditionof00gvse/page/n1/mode/2up In addition to checking out old listings for houses on your block the archives here at Brownstoner can come in handy for photos and history. If you want to dig into the types of wood that would have been used in your house you might want to hunt through the Brooklyn Newstand for historic ads for your house or your street. The ads for finer homes frequently mention the types of wood and finishes used. https://bklyn.newspapers.com/
Brownstone Home Inspection | 1 day ago
yes, the catalogues. i have some here. but keep in mind, the profiles at adriatic and dykes are based on historic profiles and those themselves reach back even further. Some of their profiles are very close to some of what has been used historically in the city.
for others reading this, if one has a shaper or router and router table (and i know where there is a porter cable router and router table for sale right now:-), we can order custom knives and router bits and make smaller moldings ourselves on these machines. in addition to having a router and router table for sale, i have a molding knife head for a standard shaper for sale. i might sell some duplicates of my router bits as well as other tools.
also, there is a person in Brooklyn who runs a business researching the history of these old houses for homeowners. i am NOT sure of the level of detail this person goes into but contacting them may be worth a try. if anything, it will give them another business idea to consider.
smileyface | 1 day ago
Thanks @Brownstone Home Inspection & @maggie.oldfather Appreciate the help!
I am in a unique situation as the homes on my side are 17 ft wide (mansard roof) and judging from what I was able to find in listing that a lot the original details in homes removed.
I don’t think salvaging is the right way to go but buying replicas to help bring in some of the features that were lacking.
Example:
– Parlor Floor doors seem to be 4 panel vs the 5 I’ve seen in picture. Would like to get 4 panel interior doors for 2nd floor.
– Molding/Door Casing that i have seem simple. I wanted to check if these were cheaper pieces that were added later before I try to invest in new recreations. (I really have the answer to this already)
smileyface | 1 day ago
House was completed in the late 1890s — Thanks so much @sjdv
cate | 14 hrs ago
Another idea: If you could point us to a listing for a house in the row (not necessarily your house), we could take a look and see what we think re the era and what is and isn’t original and what the house would likely have had originally.