Custom Residential Millwork
Home restoration is a tricky process. It requires time and devotion, regardless of the home’s age. Yet historic homes have an exclusive character that doesn’t always mesh with modern necessities. Striking that ideal balance between preserving the home’s original vibe and renovating it for modern use requires delicate decision-making. Homeowners, designers, and anyone working on a historic home can use custom residential millwork to bridge the gap.
The right millwork provides a window into the past without sacrificing the functionality of the present. When provided by skilled artisans, millwork, including doors, furniture, window casings, and more, can be carefully designed to avoid the common challenges of historic home renovations.
Continue reading to learn how custom residential millwork can provide opportunities to renovate historic homes for modern use without losing the charm of the past.
Restoring vs. Renovating Historic Homes
Home restorations aim to preserve history in every possible detail, including period-accurate materials and styles. Home renovations aim to modernize a home’s design with new features, including the tastes of the current homeowners.
Renovating historic homes usually falls somewhere between restorations and true renovations. Due to the history involved, most owners of period homes hope to retain the home’s original charm, including its architectural style and materials.
Knowing which features to retain and which to modernize requires a skilled eye and comprehension of antique design choices. Custom millwork provides owners and designers the means to tackle this problem by bridging old and new techniques.
How to Choose the Right Style
Historic home renovations require accurate recreations of the home’s architectural style. This requires knowledge of how period homes applied the design standards of their eras. For many homes, this style has mixed with later ones as other owners have attempted to modernize it.
For example, Colonial-style homes often emphasize functionality over decor with simple millwork. Comparatively, the Victorian style was almost all decorative, with elaborate millwork emphasizing the woodworkers’ great skill. The Craftsman style utilized flat, clean lines to create honest, open spaces.
Historic homeowners must recognize the stylistic elements they intend to restore or renovate. Built-in cabinets in the Craftsman style may be mixed with elaborate Victorian crown molding. A trained eye can help uncover the home’s history and distinguish between modern additions and the features that truly belong.
How Custom Millwork Can Preserve History
Many historic homes are in disrepair due to natural wear and tear on their millwork. This can include rotting molding, broken furniture, damaged floors, and more. A skilled renovator can use custom millwork to identify and replicate the building’s original architectural style in their new designs.
This is an effective preservation strategy, regardless of whether the millwork is a window casing, a door, a piece of crown molding, a roof beam, or the entire floor. Many period homes need repairs to remain functional, but many renovation techniques neglect the historical integrity of the original building.
Custom millwork allows experienced home renovators to offer homeowners of historic homes numerous benefits, including:
- Replacing cracked, warped, damaged, or missing millwork with sturdy modern equivalents
- Achieving regulatory safety compliance with authentic yet new materials
- Balancing the original style with modern amenities
- Cleaning, restoring, and repurposing old materials to preserve their original beauty
- Renovating old flooring for modern standards
The goal of custom millwork is to strike the perfect balance between restoring the home to its authentic style and renovating it for modern use. Experienced millwork artisans can clean and repurpose old materials (if they aren’t too damaged) to preserve as much of the original home as possible.
At the same time, they need to renovate the home to meet modern safety standards. Striking the ideal balance between functionality and authenticity requires a deep knowledge of antique and modern materials, styles, and techniques.
While many owners of historic homes hope to do this themselves, they shouldn’t have to! Experienced home renovators can isolate your home’s style and design custom millwork solutions that best capture its period while updating it for modern use.
Contact Our Experienced Millwork Artisans to Renovate Your Historic Home
All home renovation projects carry financial risks. However, historic home renovations have the additional burden of preservation. If the project goes wrong, the homeowner can lose more than the cost of the renovations; they could lose a piece of history.
At Sixth Avenue Custom, we use custom residential millwork to prioritize authenticity in our historic home renovations. We understand that homeowners want to use and enjoy their period homes with modern amenities. However, doing so without sacrificing its original style requires delicate artistry.
Contact our team today to learn how our custom millwork designs, including furniture, doors, floors, window casings, molding, and more, can be used to renovate your historic home without losing its exclusive charm.
