Enjoy Architecturals Antiques and Vintage Woods While You Can

By, Brad Kittel

Likewise, restaurants are also adopting the architectural antiques movement and we have been fortunate enough to supply a number of them in San Antonio, Houston, and Austin.  From Barry's Pizza Parlors, The Catfish Parlors, Gringos Restaurants, Goode Bar-B-Q, and other specialty restaurants have found that the variety of materials, from bead board to tin ceiling and antique doors, the customers are eating up the decor as well as the food.  They enjoy the distraction and variety of visual stimulation while waiting for and eating their dinners.  There is no downside to adding the materials to a restaurant other than the cost, which is not significant compared to the benefit of distracting customers from their wait or other issues that might come up in the process of serving their food. 

While the opportunity to take full advantage of our materials is easier with new construction, the remodeling opportunities are actually wide open and can be done without being expensive.  From adding antique beaded wood for a wainscot in the baths and kitchens to simply changing out all of the yucky newer doors for antique doors, and even adding beams to ceilings in kitchens and other main areas.  Tin ceiling is another decorative element that goes well in small quantities, from the single piece here or there, to a great ceiling with some bead board around the edge and some Long Leaf Pine to border it.  Again, the costs are small compared to the look you can get when it is complete.  A few pieces of stained glass will add huge splashes of color that will be appreciated by everyone who enters the room.  Furthermore the pieces will continue to go up in value and be a good investment because they continue to go up in value as time goes by.

Adding nice doorknobs and doors can be a little more expensive upgrade, but once again, it is also a good investment because of the increase in value on them as well.  Of coarse there are certain doors that will get more attention than others in your home, such as the front door to the house, the guest bath, and the master suite are all great doors to add classic doorknobs too.  The first impressions from your entrance to your home are often the greatest, since people who never enter the home often draw conclusions from the entrance.  A bland entry suggests a bland interior, and to some, an owner with no style or taste, since they ignored one of the most important elements in their home.   Antique doors with style and character cost less than new doors of comparable quality and are relatively easy to add in a remodel as well as new construction.  Another factor is that they are generally unique and the odds of someone down the same street having the same one are infinitesimal, unlike mass manufactured doors that anyone can find and copy if they happen to like yours.  Unique is special, whether it is the doorknob, the door, or both, it is one place you can have fun and not go wildly over budget doing it. 

Finally, wood flooring such as Long Leaf Pine, is naturally beautiful and will last a lifetime.  We are fortunate to still have access to this commercially extinct wood, thanks to salvage or mining of it from the last of the old structure that are being torn down these days.  In another 15 years it will be mostly gone and we will look back at real wood from ancient trees as a treasure long lost and sadly wasted when it was thrown into landfills.  FEMA, for example, will not allow salvaging of materials off from the sites they pay to clean up after the hurricanes, sending tons of antique beams and lumber to their final death rather than letting them be salvaged.  They are filling the dumps with goods rather than just trash.  Large corporate farms are refusing to allow the salvage of old farmhouses and barns that are on homesteads they buy out to add to their massive farming operations.  Lawyers have stopped the salvage of houses and barns on large tracts of land slated for development as well because of fears of liability from workers getting hurt while salvaging from the property.  Likewise EPA rules on demolition and waste are eliminating the salvage of wood from buildings because it increases the percentage of contaminants in proportion to the whole waste that is being dumped in the landfill which increase the cost to dump.  If the percentage of lead based paint or other contaminants is above a certain percentage, it forces contractors to pay for hazardous waste disposal at higher rates, even though it is still the same amount of hazardous waste that would have been disposed of before extracting the salvage.  

As a result of these and other factors, there is a shrinking supply of vintage lumber available for salvage in an environment of growing demand and appreciation.  As a consequence, like all other building materials, prices are going up and thereby, the value of these elements added to your home will also raise the value of your investment over time and make it more sellable when the day finally arrives that you decide to sell it and move on.  As I said in a pre-Y2K article, the appreciation for our historical past will grow as we get further into the new millennium and people will hunger for pieces of the past that remind us of a nostalgic time we seem to believe may have been simpler and happier than where we are now.  Creating environments that are relaxing and full of wood and antiquities seems to soothe us and thus the popularity of the materials that make that possible is growing exponentially.  With all of the top home design magazines displaying this look on their pages, the public is involved and loving it, so it doesn't look like the trend will move away from this look in the near future.  What are you planning to do on your new projects?