Greetings Old House Lovers!

Welcome to my blog! I created this site at the suggestion of friends to share information and answer questions about old homes. I will offer my insights about repairs, maintenance and improvements, as well as some observations about being a landlord with an old building and a vintage pick up truck and about my projects. I provide access to my monthly columns from the “Food for Thought” newsletter. Also here are some brief summaries wth photos showing my old home services. I rely on my readers to help me grow and I value your input. I hope to be of support to other old house dwellers and those with similar interests.

HOW TO USE THIS SITE: You can search inside the site by typing in a subject. You can also view my posts in chronological order. If you have questions about a particular post or about an old house issue in general post a comment and I will do my best to respond promptly. All images and text copyright M. Kafka 2009-2011 and are not to be reproduced or distributed for any purposes other than for personal not for profit use without my express written permission. Information is for general purposes only; and I assume no liability for any damages or injuries sustained based on these recommendations, appropriate experts should be summoned for home repair and improvement and all code and local regulations should be followed.

I’ve loved old houses since childhood when I often visited the large, intact Victorian Queen Anne home of family friends in Plainfield, NJ. I was completely mesmerized by the construction and elaborate decor. I was encouraged to develop my interests in building and architecture. I started doing maintenance on my family’s 1940 Garrison colonial in Maplewood when I was very young. My mother took us to as many historic homes and museums as possible and purchased old architectural books for me. We were estate sale habitues, enjoying peeking inside homes seemingly frozen in the past as well as collecting artifacts and antiques from them. By my teen years the family was gutting and renovating a circa 1900 shingled cottage in Belmar using our own labor and design talents and my stepfather was teaching me more about construction. I studied architecture briefly at NJIT and graduated Rutgers College with a degree in Art History, with a strong interest in historic residences. While at school my parents supported me in acquiring and refurbishing a circa 1860s Italianate town house in New Brunswick. We later worked on a variety of other period homes in the same area. For over 20 years I’ve been preserving and upgrading an 1889 Queen Anne considered the focal point of the local historic district. I am the third owner of this house and it was in a state of decay when I moved in. It contains three sensitively designed rental units added in the 1930s. The house serves as my personal case study and proving ground for various products and techniques. Striving to provide safe, attractive and comfortable historic housing on a budget in this elaborate, state regulated and city rent controlled property with minimal disruption to the residents has been a challenging project. I’ve volunteered with historical societies since the 1980s and have served on the Mayor’s Historical Association for New Brunswick since its’ inception.

Wisteria Hall

I am also partners in a retail booth featuring lighting, hardware and antiques in the Coxsackie Antique Center, south of Albany, NY. Since the end of the 1970s I have collected and serviced antique lamps and lighting and repaired and refurbished vintage furniture. My partner and I are refurbishing the nearby 1810 Tomkins Family farm, the home of a prosperous family which was substantially renovated in 1897.

For about 20 years I have maintained a residence in Provincetown, MA where there is a healthy population of people passionate about old homes, art and antiques. I have worked on a variety of unique early Cape Cod buildings, most notably the pristine 1847 Greek Revival Universalist Meeting House, where I had the honor of refurbishing over 60 historic window sash. In early 2010 I began the slow work of maintaining and eventual preservation of a 1966 Modernist house in the woods there which allows me to exercise my creativity on a familiar era.

I’m a huge advocate of saving physical resources and repairing things rather than replacing them whenever possible and I have an ongoing interest in educating people in how to save energy in their daily lives and make their homes more comfortable and safer with as little stress as possible. I welcome your thoughts and questions and will do my best to respond to them.

For those of you interested in saving energy and money at home here is a link to Hal’s Energy Tips. Hal has been working with these issues for a number of years and has some excellent additional observations that compliment my blog.

http://www.livingstructures.com/halsenergytip.html

Tags: Introduction