Does anybody do old-style house maintenance any more?

Mistral001

lessonlearned wrote: »

I retained our wooden front door, which was much nicer and I just gave it a fresh coat of paint every couple of years.

s.

I have painted my external doors about every 5 years, but that usually entails major preparation work, two coats of undercoat and a gloss coat. Last year I painted one door only two years after the last time it was painted. I gave it just gloss coat after a good cleaning and light sanding and it didn't more than half an Hour, so a little and often is perhaps the motto.


BTW my front door is original (1953) and about 15 years ago maybe 3 or 4 years after I bought the house, I asked a professional painter to paint it. He said I needed a new door. I did some repairs to the woodwork and painted it myself. I have been painting it every four or five years since. I cannot see it needing replacing at all in my lifetime.

Horace

Floss wrote: »

We have kept all the original varnished panelled interior doors, including on the pantry /cupboard under stairs. The house next door has had all the doors replaced with modern ones, and has lost some character in doing so.

I confess I do have some new modern doors in my home but I have selected ones that look like they are art deco. I also have a solid oak door for the side entry that looks old but is new. I wanted to update my home yet retain some original features. Unfortunately the internal doors had to be replaced because they were very thin ply and very tatty - they must have been replaced in the 1970's so they didn't have the panelled doors that were here originally. My new doors look as though they have panels on them but configured differently.

I was round at my friend's house recently and she lives in a 1930's house and all her internal doors are the original ones and where she has had to replace doors, she has had to go to reclamation yards to buy them.

I have been in other houses on my street that have lost all their character because pantries have been removed and generally everything is too modern even the fireplaces.

When I moved in I was digging in the garden and kept finding old blue Victorian edging tiles which for some reason had been placed in the soil upside down so only the base was showing - I dug them all up and now they edge the lawn where it meets the patio.

Mistral001

I sometimes think that many people do not carry out basic maintenance of their houses like regularly painting the exterior, not because they have no desire to do so, but because they just do not know how to do it properly.

I am fairly handy with basic DIY I think and that comes from watching my father when I was young, but I think that after renting for many years and not doing any painting at all, I have unlearned a lot of things. I used to paint a gate for my parents when I was a kid of 10 or 11 and it was done without much trouble but when I took up that type of painting again in my 30's the paint would run or bubble when dried. That is not supposed to happen I would think! I knew how to paint when I was a kid and now that I am an adult I should actually not just know how to paint, but I should be better at it!


In fact a few youtube videos showed me that actually the professionals did not paint the way I thought they did and they painted pretty much like the way I did it years ago a kid only did it quicker as they had more strength than a 11 year old kid.

cat4772

I have recently moved back to my childhood home (buying it from parents). When my parents moved in 35 years ago, the sash windows were rotting (glass held in with nails, tape and prayers) so parents replaced them with uPVC. And the doors.

The window seals have deteriorated (drafts coming from them) so i will be looking to revert back to wooden sash windows - probably in 5 years when I have saved up the money for it. uPVC doors will be replaced with wooden ones (might even get a stable door - I've always wanted one).

Painting I've had to do - can't afford a decorator. Some wooden facings will need replacing when I have the roof fixed but I'll probably go for wood again.

At our old house, we had a detached garage built and wood was used for door surrounds and facings. In 10 years, I revarnished once (after 5 years) and painted just before I left; the wood only needed a very light sand with the finest paper (preparation for painting and not to smooth the wood).

My parents aren't "handy" people but I'm prepared to give things a go. You tube has tons of helpful videos and my local college has a women's taster day and I've signed up for plumbing and brickwork (my house is going to need repointing soon, so I'll see about doing what I can before paying someone else to do it!)

cat.x