Re-Purposing Old House Parts
Photo via Architectural Record
Using old house parts in new ways and new places is a brilliant way to honor a house's past...
Recently while the kid was napping, I was folding laundry and catching up on my Tivo-habit and I caught a re-run of Generation Renovation that featured the 640max House in Baton Rouge, Lousiana.
The before pictures of the house caught me a little off-guard. I've never seen a house brought back from the dead like this one was. Actually, the house is two connected Louisiana shotgun houses which had been wrecked by a fire over ten years ago and then abandoned. What a mess. Not much left to save except the shell of the house and some miscellaneous house parts.
Most folks would have demolished the thing and started over. But two architects from NYC who moved to Baton Rouge decided to work with this burned shell of a duplex and create a single family home. In doing so, they focused on salvaging the old house parts that they could find and re-purposing them in the house.
The windows in the photo up there? Those were old windows and interior transoms which they reset in an exterior wall. As someone who collects old windows as art, I LOVED this idea.
They also re-purposed some elegant wall height old shutters as a mobile screen between their living and dining room. The shutters were set onto pivots which allow the homeowners to close and open them as needed. The exposed beams and studs are a nod to the bones of the house which survived the fire.
We salvaged the trim, windows, built-ins and doors in this house. Now if I can brainstorm some ideas for re-using some of the other old house parts that we found in the basement...
(You can see more photos of the 640max House at EmeryMcClure Architecture: 640max and at the Architectural Record website.)
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Comments
Man, I wish more cable shows would show how to do this sort of thing. Very, very cool. I should change my middle name to "re-purposed".
Posted by: Greg | April 14, 2006 9:24 PM
Sounds like a cool show. The windows look great. My first thought was, "Man! Why can't I put together rooms that nicely?"
Makes me wonder what I'll eventually do with all the cedar shiplap I took out upstairs.
Posted by: SD | April 14, 2006 9:35 PM