The Art of Blending
Old & New Structures
by Gordon F. Tully
Renovations are full of surprises. There
are the surprises when you actually
remove the old finishes and discover that
the joists run the other way, when you
learn that the carpenter ants have been
more industrious than the owner, or
when the main plumbing stack is found
to run on center through a proposed
window. But the surprises I will talk
about here relate to style, and I will use a
kitchen renovation we did three years ago
as an example.
The house was a large, imitation Dutch
Colonial located in a fancy suburb. The
new occupants were a young family who
were vacating a lovely