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Demetra
  • Female
  • Bethesda, MD
  • United States
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Photo preservation project
1 Reply

Started this discussion. Last reply by jane Apr 21.

Kitchen

Replied Oct. 24, 2008

 

Demetra's Page

Latest Activity

Very nicely done. Any experience with removing paint from masonry with steam?
May 21
this NYTimes site didn't come up. The last preservation conference I went to had a very good presentation of these houses. The biggest issue seems to be that the land is so valuable and the houses so undervalued - ugly, 'old fashioned' (!), too litt…
April 21
Demetra added a discussion
Nice NY Times story on documenting Modern houses in an effort to save them... http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/realestate/11wczo.html?ref=realestatephotos on display in Westport, CT through May 1.
April 13
Hi Susan, Glad to hear you liked the article. When I was doing my research, I found a piece of black Stedman tile among the files at the Smithsonian's Warshaw Collection (housed in the Museum of American History in Washington, DC). If you aren't abl…
January 11
December 1, 2009
jane left a comment for Demetra
November 30, 2009
Demetra left a comment for jane
November 30, 2009
jane left a comment for Demetra
November 30, 2009

Profile Information

Tell us about yourself:
I'm the editor-in-chief of Old-House Journal, and I've been in love with historic architecture and design since I was a kid.
Tell us about your old-house experiences and dreams:
My old-house experiences started long before I worked at OHJ when I owned a circa 1900 Foursquare in Pittsburgh—a house that required constant maintenance and unmuddling (it came with an avocado green kitchen—need I say more?). I quickly learned all about “the mushroom factor” firsthand. I also learned the joys of uncovering pocket doors sealed in the wall and forgotten for decades, and the thrill of seeing a faux graining pattern begin to emerge as I painstakingly removed bright red wall-to-wall shag carpeting from my living room floor (I think stapling carpet pads to wood floors should be illegal, by the way). Oh yes, and I also learned exactly how hard it is to remove gloss white paint from mahogany woodwork, by any number of techniques. As for my old-house dreams, the list keeps growing…
Website:
http://oldhousejournal.com

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Demetra's Blog

Demetra

Get Out the Vote for Preservation

When I was in Boston last month, I walked the Freedom Trail and marveled at the countless architectural gems I stumbled upon around seemingly every corner of that history-steeped city. Today I found out that I can help fund preservation efforts at one of them. Thanks to the Partners in Preservation program, a joint effort by American Express and The National Trust, 25 historic sites are eligible for grants of up to $100,000 to fund preservation efforts. Members of the public get one online vote… Continue

Posted on April 16, 2009 at 10:30am —

Demetra

Restoration in 3-D

It’s not often that I take my kid to the movies and leave the theater with a full-blown case of old-house envy. But such was my experience after venturing with my seven-year-old to see Coraline last weekend. For those not in the know, the movie boasts spectacular 3-D special effects; they make the house that serves as the story’s backdrop spring readily and realistically to life. And what a house it is--a dazzling Queen Anne complete with turret, wraparound porch, cotton-candy-pink paint,… Continue

Posted on February 11, 2009 at 10:38am — 2 Comments

Demetra

Homeschooling

If you think homeschooling refers only to parents teaching their children, think again. In Portland, Oregon, some homeschooling of my favorite variety—the kind that has the best interests of historic houses at heart—will be taking place via an innovative holiday open house. The in-progress fire restoration of a 1937 Tudor is being opened up to the community to help answer questions about fire safety, home repairs and design, era appropriate materials and fixtures, researching house history—you n… Continue

Posted on December 5, 2008 at 1:09pm — 4 Comments

Demetra

Remuddling Request

I know you all probably like that last page of Old-House Journal—the one that features horrendous examples of what not to do to your historic home. I also know, of course, that you’re way too savvy to ever butcher your own houses like the examples we’ve shown through the years, but I’m guessing you see similar house horror stories just about everywhere you go. Changed rooflines. Thoughtless porch enclosures. ‘Updated’ façades. Additions that overpower the original house. And we won’t even get in… Continue

Posted on November 13, 2008 at 1:38am — 6 Comments

Demetra

A Tempest on a Tin Can

Anybody see the real estate section in Saturday’s Washington Post? There was an interesting article about the voyage of a Lustron house. Not familiar with Lustrons? They were porcelain enameled prefab houses pitched as the answer to the housing crisis after WWII. These little dynamos (average size 1,000 square feet) arrived in boxes on the back of a truck, and were billed as do-it-yourself assembly jobs. While that may or may not have been true for the average homeowner, the houses were fairly p… Continue

Posted on November 3, 2008 at 6:30pm — 6 Comments

Comment Wall (17 comments)

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At 2:32pm on December 1, 2009, Red Queen said…
Thanks for taking care of the web site!
At 10:30pm on November 30, 2009, jane said…
if you want to talk to that site directly, let me know - one of the originators is my nephew...
I'll send an introduction for you to the guys
At 12:16pm on November 30, 2009, jane said…
I recently needed to sign in again here and at other sites after my hard drive crashed. (I dropped my lap top). I was required at one site to write a note about why I wanted to join - 're-join' in my case - which was then approved by the site staff - they sent a password to me to use. (I now keep a file of passwords in my Rolodex, just in case.) It was a couple of days before I could post, but no spam on that site.
You might try something like that.
At 10:33am on November 30, 2009, Phil said…
By the way, in this Thanksgiving season and all, thank you to your and the rest of the staff for setting up this site. It is much better than the old boards were (esp. with photo and video availability), and the spamming is in fact much, much less than the old site.
At 1:55pm on April 20, 2009, MallorySusott said…
Thank you, that helps a lot. I was even more confounded when my ex-landlord found an old lantern stamped "victor light" the day following my talk with the realtor, I was very confused by the whole "victor light" business. Vitrolite makes much more sense.
At 12:48pm on January 9, 2009, Meredith K. said…
Thanks so much. Yeah, its a great house. I drove past it for 5 years, feeling really sad about it because it was falling apart. A local bank owned the property and wanted to tear it down, but the Opelika Historic Preservation Society bought it from them just in the nick of time and had a local contractor put a new roof on it. When they realized how much it was going to cost to actually finish restoring it, they decided to let it go. We bought it basically for the price of the roof. Its supposed to have a cupola and bays on the sides, but those were destroyed in a tornado in 1948. I've been looking for examples of houses with mansard roofs and cupolas or towers (mostly on the HABS website), but having a difficult time finding appropriate examples. There's apparently only one pic in existence of the house, made around the turn of the century, but its of the family on the front porch, so there's not much else to go on, except the memories of some of the old timers, which doesn't seem to be very good. Anyway, I could talk a long time about it.. If you have any ideas re cupolas, etc. I sure would be interested...
At 9:03am on January 2, 2009, John Rodgers said…
not sure if the forum is set up to where you can delete members, but the newest member Michael John is a spammer. Check out his comment, a pretty lengthy advertisement for "generic viagra".

JR
At 11:16pm on November 17, 2008, Larry said…
Oh WOW!!! You have a cool job!!
At 8:54pm on October 23, 2008, John Rodgers said…
thank you for posting John's steam paint removal video...I stumbled across it a couple of months ago after begin my frustrating restoration of 27 cypress doors that had been painted over the years.

On an unrelated note, how do members become featured? I keep seeing people popping up, but not sure what it means or what it entails to become featured.
At 2:22pm on October 23, 2008, Shawn Paul Songer said…
Thank You! Pittsburg PA ? Im from Brookville. Took me forever to find a house in Texas with a basement. We fell in love because it reminded us so much of up north. But not so cold, some snow, and no mushrooms.

Shawn
 
 
 

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