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Restoring Your Historic House: The Comprehensive Guide for Homeowners Hardcover – December 10, 2019
- Print length720 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherDown East Books
- Publication dateDecember 10, 2019
- Dimensions9.38 x 1.66 x 10.04 inches
- ISBN-100884484904
- ISBN-13978-0884484905
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From the Publisher
HISTORICAL HOMES - FULL RENOVATION
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ORIGINAL PHOTO |
DETERIORATED |
RESTORED |
Scott Hanson is a historic-building preservation professional and has 40 years’ experience rehabilitating historic houses.
He has illustrated this authoritative book with hundreds of step-by-step photos, illustrations, charts, and decision-making guides. Interspersed throughout are photo essays of 13 restored historic houses representing a range of periods and architectural styles: Italianate, Victorian, Queen Anne, Federal, Colonial, Colonial Revival, Greek Revival, Ranch, Adobe, Craftsman, Shingle, and Rustic.
With interior and exterior photography by David Clough, these multi-page features show what can be achieved when a historic home is renovated with a desire to preserve or restore as much historic character as possible.
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PART ONE: Project PlanningChapter 1: Finding the Right Historic House Chapter 2: Character defining Features of a Historic House Chapter 3: Project Design Chapter 4: Do-It-Yourself ? Chapter 5: Bureaucrats You'll Meet |
PART TWO: Under the SurfaceChapter 6: The Demolition Phase Chapter 7: Structural Concerns |
PART THREE: SystemsChapter 8: Heating & Cooling Chapter 9: Insulation & Ventilation Chapter 10: Plumbing & Electrical |
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PART FOUR: The Exterior EnvelopeChapter 11: Roofs Chapter 12: Exterior Walls Chapter 13: Exterior Trim & Windows |
PART FIVE: Interior FInishesChapter 14: Floors Chapter 15: Interior Walls Chapter 16: Ceilings Chapter 17: Interior Trim Chapter 18: Interior Paint & paper |
PART SIX: Tools & ResourcesChapter 19: Tools Chapter 20: Resources |
Editorial Reviews
Review
― Newburyport Preservation Trust Quarterly News
"Saving such character-defining features as windows and rooflines, mouldings and woodwork should be a given, even as we renovate for energy efficiency, comfort and modern life. This book (Restoring Your Historic House) is part Vintage Houses by Hewitt and Block, part McAlester's Field Guide, and several parts early Old-House Journal, with a credible amount of true grit in the mix. A lot of information goes into 712 pages!"
― Old-House Journal
Book Description
From the Back Cover
Advance Praise for RESTORING YOUR HISTORIC HOUSE:
“Restoring Your Historic House covers a wide range of projects and house styles, delivering specific and useful information while explaining the why-to along with the how-to.”―PATRICIA POORE, editor-in-chief and former owner, Old-House Journal
“Using hundreds of photos and illustrations and actual project examples, Scott Hanson shares his professional expertise on ways you can update a historic house while respecting its characteristic architectural features―the very details that attracted you to the house in the first place.”―GORDON H. BOCK, architectural historian, educator, and co-author of The Vintage House (www.vintagehousebook.com)
"Restoring Your Historic House is an impressive and comprehensive guide for all those who consider it a pleasure and a privilege to own and preserve a beautiful survivor from the past and to pass it onward to the next generation for enjoyment and shelter.”―GEORGE O. SIEKKINEN, JR., former Senior Architect, National Trust for Historic Preservation, Washington, DC
About the Author
David Clough is a lifelong lover of photography with a special passion for photographing structures of historical significance. His work has been published in Japan and the U.S. He lives in Rockland, Maine.
Product details
- Publisher : Down East Books; Illustrated edition (December 10, 2019)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 720 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0884484904
- ISBN-13 : 978-0884484905
- Item Weight : 5.36 pounds
- Dimensions : 9.38 x 1.66 x 10.04 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #325,931 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #41 in Historic Architectural Preservation
- #267 in Residential Architecture
- #666 in Do-It-Yourself Home Improvement (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Award-winning author, Scott T. Hanson is an architectural historian and preservation consultant who lives with his husband Andrew and four Maine Coon cats in Whitten House, a 19th century home in the mid-coast region of Maine. He grew up in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and attended Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY, before settling on the Maine coast.
His most recent book, "Restoring Your Historic House, The Comprehensive Guide for Homeowners," was released by Tilbury House Publishers in December 2019 and won the 2020 "Excellence in Publishing" Award from the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. This 720-page volume took four years to write. It contains more than 2,000 photos and illustrations. Drawing on 40 years' experience in the historic preservation field, Hanson has written the restoration book he waited decades for someone else to write. "It finally occurred to me that I was qualified and no one else was doing it, so I did it" he said. The author and noted architectural photographer David Clough have traveled across the U.S. to photograph 13 beautifully restored houses and interview their owners. These featured houses appear between the how-to chapters.
His previous book was "Down East Homes, Classic Maine Coastal Cottages and Town Houses," co-written with Maine State Historian, Earle G. Shettleworth, Jr. and Christopher Glass with photographs by David Clough. It was published by Tilbury House in 2014. This book looks at 52 historic Maine homes that were published in Scientific American architectural magazines between 1885 and 1905. Historic photos and plans are shown along with contemporary photos of 38 houses. Each house has an architectural history essay by Shettleworth or Hanson and an architect's commentary by Glass.
Hanson also wrote "Cleaning Antique Staffordshire Transferware," available in print and digital formats. Using documentary research into probate inventories of members of the original owners of his house, and shards of historic transferware found under and around the house in the course of restoration, he was able to identify the exact patterns that were in the house during the time two generations of the Whitten family called it home. Searching in shops, flea markets, auctions, and online, he has slowly found pieces of the patterns the Whitten family owned and assembled a collection reflecting their time in the house. After a decade of collecting, he has brought back to the house many items matching those owned by the Whittens in the 19th century. As part of that process, he developed an effective and affordable method for cleaning transferware, which he shares in the book. In 2017, he was elected President of the international Transferware Collector's Club.
He is the co-author of "The Architecture of Cushing's Island," written with Maine State Historian, Earle G. Shettleworth, and published in 2012. He has appeared, along with Whitten House, on the television program "If Walls Could Talk" on HGTV.
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Reviewed in the United States on August 2, 2020
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If you want something to teach you what goes into restoring a historic home from top to bottom, that is honest about all the pitfalls, expenses, and joys of fixing up a classic home, this is for you.
If you’re looking for a pretty coffee table book that makes breathing life into 100+ year-old home look like a walk in the park, keep shopping!
Owning this book will save you thousands of dollars of mistakes that you could make by not understanding everything that needs to go into a comprehensive renovation. It does not sugarcoat the difficulties in managing a large project and will help you decide which things you should do yourself and which things you should really leave to the experts.
The author has shared everything from the big picture to the most mundane details involved in a classic restoration, and is very candid about things that went right, and also some things that could’ve gone a lot better. Ultimately, you can really see that his goal is to save other homeowners money and time by sharing his own experience in words and in photos.
I have restored more than one old house and this is one of the best reference books I have ever had.
I am about to embark on a restoration of an 1885 Queen Anne Victorian and I am looking forward to going into the project with even more knowledge than I already have about the process from start to finish.
Highly, highly recommended.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 2, 2020

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