Adding the new to the old: How to build an addition on vintage houses

Anya Tikka
Posted 8/21/12

As owners of vintage houses know, each house has its own character, often just waiting to be discovered when a renovation project or home addition is planned, according to nationally known architect …

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Adding the new to the old: How to build an addition on vintage houses

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As owners of vintage houses know, each house has its own character, often just waiting to be discovered when a renovation project or home addition is planned, according to nationally known architect Mark Alan Hewitt. Along with Gordon Bock, the former editor of This Old House Journal, he gave a presentation about working on old houses at Lumberland Town Hall in early October to a full house. Their talk was based on a book they have co-authored on the subject, “The Vintage House,” which is full of ideas for sensitive additions and successful upgrades.

When considering any upgrade, addition, or repair, the main thing is to try to keep to the original idea of the house as much as possible, and that may take time to define, the speakers said. “Give it time,” Bock explained, “Move into the house first and get to know its character. Wait until spring, maybe there are tulips coming up, and that’s an important part of the site.”

“Understanding a building in terms of its DNA and its history will give you some ideas of what to do with it. Why reinvent the wheel?” Hewitt asked. That said, there are steps a homeowner can follow, short of hiring “the best architect you can afford.”

The things to consider include:

  • Site or place (loci)
  • Skeleton of the building—how it’s grown, what makes it strong.
  • The proportional modular space—even in old houses. If you find this, then you can find new ways to add to that module.
  • The roof morphology or shape. This can be hard to understand. Houses have characteristic shapes, parts often connecting in some way.
  • The façade (identity) If you don’t pay attention to this, you can make lots of mistakes.

    While some believe the newer the better, the presenters explained that builders in 1850 actually knew what they were doing, in some cases better than today. They utilized southern exposure and took into account the prevailing winds, sun and the earth—in short, the site. The speakers emphasized how it’s important to get to know what the structure of the building is before starting to knock down walls or adding things.

    “When English builders came over, they brought with them some interesting modules. They used squares, and square and halves, and all kinds of interesting portions. Although nothing was written down, all these houses were actually built in modules. No architects or planners of any kind, just traditions passed down for generations,” Hewitt reported.

    So, if you discover what the modules are, upgrades and additions become much easier. Materials utilized around Sullivan County in 1850s were timber and masonry using blue slate, Hewitt continued.

    He then commented on some current façades: “If you were a stonemason back then, you never used bubble work; it was the worst kind of masonry, only used in the back of the house where nobody could see it. So why are people spending millions of the worst kind of stonework today? Because nobody knows, nobody seems to care anymore,” Hewitt lamented.

    Additions can be among the most difficult things to accomplish with an old, vintage house, and when you can’t tell which side is the original and which the addition, you’ve done a good job. “How to make an addition to look like it’s always been there?” Bock asked. One way is to be inspired by how people put on additions in the past. “People in this country have been doing it for 300 years, and they not only look good, but are familiar to us. They serve the needs of the building,” he continued.

    Hewitt expanded, “You can put the extension on the back, forming a ‘rear L’ on both sides, or on one side. Or you can repeat the building on the side. The Dutch did this a lot, using the same framing.” The result was a side-by-side addition that is slightly smaller but otherwise identical to the original one. Using the same material makes the addition look a part of the house.

    The most important part of the house needs to be the original building, the speakers explained. Some of the ways to do this include using size, height, position, setbacks, lower roof and subordinated materials. The position of the addition can be tricky, and the advice the presenters gave was direct. “Don’t go up!” They backed this by showing slides of additions built on top of existing buildings that had gone drastically wrong.

    An addition can start slightly behind the front of the house. “It doesn’t change the building but frames the original part of the building, and it could even be bigger than the original part,” Hewitt explained. The presenters back this current green trend wholeheartedly. Hewitt said, “It’s simply good economics for the planet to keep recycling things. Consider green building, the energy envelope, or how much manpower went into building it—it’s all about renewable resources.”

    Hewitt and Bock also mentioned the poor quality of materials we’re so used to now. The old buildings were built to last, using solid materials and construction techniques, and in an old house, renovations and additions should be done keeping that in mind. “Keep the old wood framing of the windows,” Hewitt advised. “Keep the features you love in the old house. Keep the good materials. Don’t pay less for the bad materials. If on a tight budget, pace it so you do it in small increments, like this year, we’ll buy slate. Do it in increments.”

    The presentation was at the invitation of Lumberland Museum. Town historian Frank Schwarz explained, “I’m a 50-year resident. It seemed there’s a lot of monumental architecture in our town, so we felt we had to get together, united, to learn what we could do together to preserve our heritage.”

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