Tips on Renovating an Old House without Making It Look Overly Modern?

February 3, 2022

Many people prefer buying old houses and adapting them to their needs and wishes, instead of buying brand new places or building them from scratch. This has many advantages, and may be the middle solution as you can save a lot of time and money, and still have things your way, exactly as you planned and imagined.

However, it is important to be realistic and practical when renovating an old house, to make sure it becomes both aesthetically and functionally perfect. People often assume that renovating necessarily means making the place more modern. However, it doesn’t always have to be the case, as you can have all new things, and still get your home to look like you’ve lived there for years.

Here are a few tips from professional contractors at NE Kitchen & Flooring which should help you ensure your new home is a warm, cozy, safe and absolutely gorgeous place to live.

Make Sure You’re Building on Solid Foundations

We are all dazzled by stunning designs from interior design magazines and can’t wait to apply them in our new homes. However, before this, it is important to check if all the basic systems in the house, such as plumbing, heating, pipes, electricity and the like, are functioning properly. A simple home inspection now can save you a lot of headaches down the line.

It is much better to ensure this before starting any remodeling activities, as you can well imagine what trouble it could be discovering a faulty pipe or a leakage after the place is already renovated. Check everything, from the foundation, basement, sewage, drainage system, to flooring, walls and roof. Also, don’t forget to check the doors and windows.

Use What Is Already There

Even though the place you got is old, it doesn’t mean it hasn’t been renovated before. You might want to dig a little bit and see if you can find out if what you got is the original look of the place. You might discover some part that was removed or changed, and use it as an inspiration for the new looks of the house. Some walls may have been added or removed, some old furnaces or stairs have been walled up. Maybe you can unearth those long forgotten elements and include them in the new design.

Start from the Ground Up

This actually brings us back to the previous two tips, meaning you should check if there are some serious faults and cracks with the flooring, and see if it possible and feasible to keep some of it and simply renovate it or replace just parts of it, not the whole surface.

The choice of flooring will certainly set the tone of the design and determine many further decoration choices and decisions. The same goes for walls; if it is possible to keep some parts and of the old design, partly replace them or refurbish them, it will give your new home to feeling of a warm, cozy, “foot-worn” place.

Buy Vintage if Possible

If you consider giving your new place a little bit of old spirit, or actually keeping it, you can get “new” old things, either from antique shops, or buy really new stuff designed in the old-fashioned way. Buy items from different periods, to create a sense of gradual furnishing over time. In that way, the place might get to look like someone has been living there quite long and has been buying all those things over years. Use wood instead of metal where possible, and get some smaller yet effective old pieces of furniture such as lamps or coffee tables.