A Door Story

A Door Story

Few would deny that an entry door, like a person's face, is one of the most important elements of a home. A visitor looks for the entry when searching for a building, sees it up close when entering, and touches it when entering and exiting the building, and this happens hundreds, maybe thousands of times.

In its simplest form, a door is a movable barrier between two spaces. It matters not that it is a piece of relatively flat plywood, or an elegant hand carved work of art that extends an invitation to share a space. In a Tuscan village, doors have a presence and an elegance that comes from handcraft, vintage wood, organic paints, and an intended sense of importance.

Doors such as these do exist in our villages, towns, and cities, hiding among the many that are manufactured by door making machinery when the first touch of a hand is at the loading dock. In contrast, older doors are made from real wood, with the various components fitting together like pieces in an architectural puzzle. The interlocking of parts not only imparts strength, but also allows for movement: seasonal shrinking and swelling with changes in temperature and humidity.

The decision to repair or replace a door is a difficult one and in an older home that has a cohesive character it is also a difficult one. Cost and doing the right thing for the house are typically the determining factors. Good doors are expensive and the act of restoring a door or replacing it with a new door of good quality, are quite often comparable.

Restoring an existing door allows reuse of the casement and surrounding trim work, often without any modification. Replacing the entire door system (door and casement) requires removing the door, the door casement and usually the molding that surrounds the door. If the new door casement is not an exact match in size, the molding will then need to be modified or replaced altogether at considerable expense beyond the cost of the replacement door system.

A third option is to build a new door that in size is an exact replica of the original. This allows keeping the existing casement and trim with the option of changing the style of the door to better suit the owners taste. Note that this may or may not be an option in a Historic District where the aesthetic of the door must be maintained.

At Red Hook Design, we comfortably undertake all three of these methods with the hands down favorite being the restoration of the existing door when possible and appropriate.

My preference, to the benefit of the house, is to restore the existing door. Done properly, it will look as it was intended to look by the Architect or designer of the house, in keeping with the character of the house. It will be more energy efficient by virtue of the modern weather proofing system that will be installed and will not require disturbing the casement and door trim.  

My next choice is the fabrication of a new door that fits the existing casement. This door will have the advantages and the disadvantage of newness. Too new, square edged, and without signs of use and wear will seem out of place in an old house. The least preferred is a replacement unit that try as it might, will look new and out of place. That is not to say there are not doors available for purchase and installation, but the task of being a new door seamlessly taking your place in an old house is daunting. Add the cost of replicating the molding and trim, as the patterns are probably used throughout the house, and this may well be a surprisingly expensive project and one where in the end, after all that expense, it just doesn’t look right. Ask me how I know this  :-/

There you have it. While I may not have provided an easy answer to the decision that needs to be made, I hope I did provide food for thought as you consider your options. Oh, and lest I forget, there is a fourth choice. You can always slap another coat of paint on the old door as the last person before did, and under the delusion of maintenance, the door remains as broken as before.

More Than A House

I emerged from my truck into a lush summertime landscape of tall grass surrounded by carefully planted yet unruly flower gardens surrounding a cozy home and numerous outbuildings. It warmed my heart to see signs of life everywhere I looked. There were paths with vine covered archways and children’s toys lying about, abandoned wherever they were last used. I walked a path surrounded by flowers to the front door of a well-aged house that had been at one time the focus of my work. The color of the wood shingles had darkened to that color that only time can bring. The trim on the door had softened corners from the caress of many hands.

The inner door was open behind an equally old wooden screen door. The warm afternoon sun mixed shadows and light on the wood floor. My tentative knock was answered by a little boy with long hair as unruly as the flower beds. Clearly excited by my unexpected presence, he looked back and loudly announced, “A man is here!”. His mother came to the door, carrying his little sister in her arms, and said hello in a way that invites, but does not demand an explanation. Her manner, calm, comfortable, self-assured was the essence of that place.

I introduced myself, saying, “Hi, I’m Wayne, I built this house and just wanted to come back and see how it was doing. Although we had never met, she smiled warmly as if I were an expected friend, “Oh my, Thank You so much, we love this house! I’m Laura, this is my son Chester, and this is Vivian. Please come in and see what we’ve done with it".

 Within what seemed like a minute and as natural as it could be, I had Chester in my arms , and we were off on a tour. She showed me things they had added to the house to make it their home. We visited rooms I had built, where memories came of my successes, and the occasional flaw that only I knew existed. In every space and in every corner, there was evidence of a family living here. Children’s drawings hung from walls, in a doorway, I could see where the mom had marked her kids’ height on the door jamb as evidence of each growth spurt, labelled with a date. Potted plants and favorite things rested in corners that had once been occupied by builder’s levels and boards waiting to be used.

We stepped through the back door and walked a path to the largest of the outbuildings. It was a perfectly made compliment to the house that I had created. It, like the house, multi-leveled, was airy and light with many large windows, with a carefully made, comfortable staircase that led to alcoves littered with the tools of creative work, and kid things. Her husband was an artist and musician, away for an exhibition of his work. She painted, mothered kids, and continued the work of making this place a home.

“This is where we work,” she told me. “We tried to make it an extension of the house, but separate so that we could leave the mess of our work for the next time”.

She then showed me a second outbuilding: a beautiful little woodshed half full of split logs that would provide the family’s winter warmth. She was proud of it because she had nailed on the cedar shingles herself while her husband traveled. The studio and shed were connected by flower gardens whose blooms and vines extended all the way to the edge of the woods that surrounded the once empty dirt lot where I had parked my truck every day for a year of my life. Everywhere I looked, life was happening, kids were being nurtured, and dreams were coming true. This home was functioning exactly as intended, evolving to nurture a family in all the phases of life and growth. Seeing how she had made that house their home, I felt a deep sense of purpose and satisfaction. It was more than pride in my workmanship, but in feeling that there was good karma here. That karma, if you believe in such a thing, had carefully been built-in as my crew and I  worked day to day to create a home. I was glad to see that the love of craft in building it had taken seed, and was now so evident.

We parted with hugs, smiles, and a mutual appreciation for the work that we had both done to create this place, and the love we brought to it.

I suppose that building a house could be a simple exercise in cutting boards and fastening them in some logical order to enclose a space. The enclosure concept itself is simple with the component parts, floor, walls, ceiling, roof, as flat simple panels that will indeed provide shelter, but perhaps not much in the way of spiritual uplift. As I see it, my work, and the purpose in doing that work, is building spaces that house and nurture the people who live in them. That is, to sculpt a space that energizes, brings peace, and inspires creativity, providing an environment that nurtures us and our families.

I remember well the building of that house, and how It had been so pleasant to work within a secluded clearing in the woods. There, I felt the construction effort only briefly interrupted an abiding sense of calm in those woods that would quickly return once we left. . With a sense of honoring a special place, we worked carefully in what, to me, is my art form, sculpting living space. As I built each room, I thought about how those spaces might be used and what they would feel like as the day’s light changed. I imagined the house being lived in.

Although we finished the house many years ago, I can remember the details of events that occurred while building it as vividly as if they had taken place last week. There were days when we planned our work for the day over morning coffee and then perfectly executed our plans, and there were days when unexpected challenges and setbacks delayed progress. All in all, a typical build, but no less important for that fact. Then, finally, there came the day when ownership, spiritually and physically, transferred to the new inhabitants. As an artist, a full-time mom and their kids built their lives in that home, they probably never thought about the builder who had originally envisioned and created it. But, over the years, I thought about them.

I feel this way about all the homes that I build. This house was one of many fondly remembered houses, that for a time had my attention, the best craftsmanship that I had to offer, and the pure intent of creating a home.

I had embarked on a road trip whose purpose was to  revisit some of the houses I had built, and to explore my success in transforming raw wood, metal, and plaster into important places for people. The artist’s house was the first on that journey. Prior to this visit, it had been a freshly shingled salt box on a barren dirt lot. Now, it was a home that a family would fondly remember for the rest of their lives as “their” house. As I drove away, I sensed with satisfaction, “My time here was well spent”.  

Practice What You Preach !!

It has been awhile since my heart and my head have been in a place that would allow me to continue this thread of posts. For the past ten years or so, I have been living and working in a place where the wooden structures that I so love are a rarity. For a number of reasons, the least of which is another box checked on my personal bucket list, I have been plying my trade in the concrete jungle of NYC where indeed, wood is a seldom prized resource. As one would hope, given enough time, things do come around and the ship rights itself. And so it has in the life of this wood-wright, with the purchase of an 1890's wooden house on Munjoy Hill, Portland Maine. The East End was in its day a working class neighborhood where the families of those servicing the waterfront, made their homes. These days it is another frontier of gentrification and revitalization, where much of what is taking place in this process is to tear down the old wooden housing stock, and build new synthetic, multi-unit, condominiums. The fate of our house will be different in it's rebirth, restoration, and period embellishment. As I write this, the project is underway, and the house hovers six feet above the earth, on two ginormous steel beams, defying gravity, attracting much attention, and begging "please put me down". Although lifting and moving the house wasn't part of the original plan, it dawned on us in the early imagining, that in the process of dealing with a crumbling foundation and an absurdly close proximity to the house next door, that lifting and moving the house on the lot was the proper first step in the restoration process. It is a case of applying the old real estate adage, "location, location, location", on a micro geographic level. In this instance, moving it eight feet sideways, and six feet back on the existing lot. It's amazing what a difference a few feet can make, as it did in this situation. I will be posting photos on the "Project" page and continuing posts here as the project continues. And so begins the next love affair with an old wooden structure in dire need of salvation. 

Old Barns

Repurposed Barns

Another Form of Energy Efficiency

Recently I visited the beautiful old home of a friend who just happens to also be a well known historian.  We toured the grounds of his gentleman’s farm, surveying a collection of 'antique' buildings, which included the old hen house, a grainery, the cow barn, and last but not least, a falling down tractor shed that had once been shelter for the farm's work horses and farm equipment.  Being of the mind that anything can be fixed, I suggested jacking the building, pulling the old mortise and tenon frame back in to place, and cabling the building, preparing it for another two hundred years or so of service.  His response was both interesting, and considering the condition of the existing building, saner than my idealist’s approach to the problem.  He said that his plan was to disassemble the structure and build a new one in its place with the old, salvaged, material.  His logic was that the reuse of the indigenous material would create a structure that although new, if carefully designed and constructed, would be much more in keeping with the old farm, than one built with new material. Recycling had also been the basis of his logic as he set out to repurpose the old grainery as a guest house.  Still in progress, the building has regained its once proud stature as an important building on the farm. 

As I travel my daily routes, I pass a number of old barns that unlike the grainery and the tractor shed, have not had the benefit of stewardship, concern and care. Often the farmhouse, once noble in purpose, has also been left to the ravages of the elements, no longer protected by a maintained roof, windows and doors. Knowing as we all do, that 'a stitch in time saves nine', one has to wonder when the critical day was that the stitch just wasn’t in time.

As building costs have risen, particularly for homes which are carefully hand crafted, (yes, there are still some of them being built,) and building materials have become more synthetic with advanced technology, it seems that there remains a place for revitalization of the structures and materials of old.  Another friend of mine has made his living by disassembling old barns and reassembling them as the beginning of new homes.  His clients typically have some deep sense of the unique character that these old buildings once had, and are willing to commit their resources to the re-creation of that character.  Their reward is typically a home that is unique, nurturing, and an aesthetically pleasing addition to the local landscape.  Further, the construction techniques of old often referred to as timber frame, if properly designed and assembled, provide tremendous freedom in the design of interior space and the placement of doors and windows.  Add to that the soaring vaulted ceilings and the internal structural elements often found in these homes, and you have the potential for a truly “Oh, Wow!!!!”, one of a kind home.

Revitalizing an old structure is also an exercise in resource and energy conservation.  Consider the possibility that the timbers and boards were probably from first growth local forests, sawn at local saw mills, the foundation stones were most likely taken from local river beds and quarries, and all of these materials were probably horse drawn to the building site.  Indeed there was considerable energy spent on all of this, but it wasn't carbon based. Just a thought !!

More Old Barns

Before You Tear Down The Walls

Building or Renovating a House Can Be A Daunting Task or A Great Adventure

For most people, a major renovation will be the largest project, in terms of time and expense that they will undertake in their lifetime.  Although it does get easier after the second or third project, should you be a serial renovator, or you do this sort of thing for a living, it can be a pretty distressing and daunting proposition.  While the simple solution might be to hire professionals to work out details and build the project, there are reasons that you might want to remain more closely involved in the design and construction process.

The most important reason to participate is that for the dwelling to be a comfortable and nurturing home for you and your family, it must be the reality of what you envision.  You must participate in the process from conception, and remain a design contributor throughout the project.  There will be many times during construction when an unexpected possibility in design or materials reveals itself.  These are the creative moments that will make the home yours.

It's not unusual for the most successful re-modelers to  spend a year or two thinking about what they like and want in a home.  Accumulating a portfolio of visual examples from magazines, photos, and brochures will be invaluable in communicating your ideas before you have a chance to learn the terminology used by construction professionals.  While reading books on architecture and design are helpful, there is nothing better than visits to successfully finished houses, local material suppliers, and buildings being renovated so that you can see and touch the materials that make a house a home.  Once you have gathered enough material to adequately describe what you hope to build, you're ready to begin the search for an architect, or if building codes allow, a competent and reputable builder- hopefully, with a strong sense of design.

Capomastro - Master Builder

Capomastro - Italian for master builder: He who maintains an experienced eye and steady hand in all aspects of construction, from concept through completion.  The Capomastro respects the balance between structure and aesthetics, practicality and creativity.  He works hand in hand with architects, designers, and owners to maintain fluidity of process and the integrity of results.

As a Master Builder with over thirty years of experience, I do not separate design from construction any more than a sculptor would separate his vision from the stone and chisel with which he carves.  I work closely with my clients, knowing that understanding their needs is as important as my knowledge of construction techniques, engineering, mechanical systems, and materials in helping them define the space that they call home.

The intent of this blog is to provide a deeper insight to owners as they approach what will be a major undertaking, with which they have little familiarity, and to remind design and construction professionals of their responsibility to the environment, the community, and most of all to their clients.  With forethought, craftsmanship, care, and a bit of luck, what we are building today will be here for a century or two, maybe longer, and will protect and nurture  families that we may never meet.

Wayne Valzania

Capomastro