Just kidding-that would actually be either the National Park Service or Old-House Journal. There are already plenty of sincere and really intelligent sources of information out there that most people don't know about, because it's easier to learn about architectural theory by watching reruns of Cribs.
We both have historic preservation degrees, and we've both spent time in the world of restoration and preservation. God bless them, but we've been around more bearded, flannel shirt-and-suspender-wearing carpenters/community theater performers than we care to think about. We've struggled to find restoration materials that must be made of unicorn horns, if the price is any indication. We've even tried to find someone who repairs wood windows without requiring us to sell our souls to make the deposit payment. Souls, as it turns out, are a dime a dozen. Is it any wonder, then, that most owners of old houses prefer to get their advice from slick magazines and shows that feature stuff you easily buy at the local big box home improvement store?
Unfortunately, the advice is often bad and the stuff is usually not quite right for older houses, but you can't blame people for not wanting to go on a Lord of the Rings-type quest for the perfect door knob. After all, lots of people have kids, jobs, and hobbies-in other words, other things to do.
So, our goal is to help you enjoy and preserve your vintage house without having to forgo life in general. We also like barns and obscure information because we find it's useful fodder for cocktail parties, which we also like and will inevitably cover on this site. (In our world, old fashioneds fall under the category of historic.) And because we know that owners of vintage houses also tend to like vintage furniture and other trinkets, we'll talk about those as well.
All of this ye old fashioned fun is surprisingly responsible, too. Hipster houses seem to have cornered the market on sustainable living, but really the only the things hipsters have on our restoration carpenters/drama aficionados are skinnier jeans, tighter flannel shirts, and Twitter feeds. The greenest building is the one already built, and living in vintage buildings and using vintage things constitutes reuse and recycling in the truest sense. On a mental health note, living in vintage homes also seems to produce less sadness. That's what we call a win-win situation!
So let's begin the beguine!
-Carla and Elisabeth
Contact us at
info@buildingrevival.com
Carla Bruni is an environmental advocate, historic preservationist, architectural historian, certified energy rater, and neurotic volunteer.
Carla has a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from Loyola University and a Master of Science in Historic Preservation from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where her focus was greening vintage homes. Over the past couple of years, she has left Chicago to work on hands-on restoration and rebuilding projects in Washington, Idaho, and New Orleans, which she visits every few months to help with hurricane rebuilding efforts.
Carla has lectured and given workshops on topics including: vintage-friendly green retrofits, window repair vs. replacement, restoration techniques for log cabin structures, and post-Katrina preservation planning in New Orleans, among others. She is a freelance consultant and works regularly with a variety of local and national preservation and environmental organizations.
In her spare time, Carla works for free, leaving her no spare time.
Elisabeth Logman has a Bachelor of Science in Speech Communication from Miami University and a Master of Science in Historic Preservation from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In addition to collecting obscure degrees, she has lectured and written on historic masonry, historically sensitive remodeling, and historic windows. Elisabeth has a background in historic masonry conditions surveys, construction estimating, historic building materials research, and National Register nominations. In other words, she's a regular standup comedienne. Her masters thesis on aggregates and lime mortar is really pretty funny.