It’s an old story with a modern twist. You fall in love with a classic beauty. You can hardly see for the stars in your eyes. Hardly hear anything but your pounding heart. You can’t believe she’s all yours! And then you move in together. And the romance ends. Which is where this story begins.

We Portlanders love our heritage homes, and we should! They’re charming, well-built, exhibit fine craftsmanship, have lots of stories to tell, and they’re...old. Meaning that they often come with problems and they don’t have many of the modern conveniences that we’ve  come to expect. So how do you update your aging beauty without sacrificing its classic charm? We talked with Anne De Wolf, Principal Designer of Arciform for over twenty-five years, about the joys, occasional frustrations, and creative challenges of bringing an older home up to contemporary standards of comfort and efficiency.

The Chain Reaction Challenge

Although this article is divided into neat headings about electrical, plumbing, and other categories, your old house is proof positive that we live in an interconnected world. Remodeling can often be like a game of Whack-a -Mole, where upgrading one thing involves several other things in a chain reaction. Adding a dormer may first necessitate a new foundation or structural work. Installing new ceiling lighting and fans in your bath may reveal asbestos insulation (asbestos wasn’t banned until 1989) in the attic, with a hefty $15,000 abatement price tag.

Powering Up: How Electrical Can Zap Your Budget

Back when many Portland homes were built, there simply weren’t as many gadgets to plug in. No blenders, Ninjas, coffee grinders, can openers and so on. So fuse boxes, and then breaker panels, were smaller, and there weren’t as many outlets . If your home was built prior to 1950, you may still have knob and tube (K&T) wiring—you can recognize it in an unfinished basement by the telltale white ceramic knobs with protruding black, insulated wires. The rest of the K&T wiring is, alas, hidden behind walls, which may still be lath and plaster—beautiful, but messy and expensive to dismantle. For this reason, most people leave the wire in until the day a larger project calls for opening the wall. Seize that opportunity to install fans, lighting, outlets—any electrical items. 

Additional outlets can be installed on the first floor by fishing an electric line up from an unfinished basement. Or on the top floor, by fishing a line down from the attic (again, asbestos insulation may be present). In both cases, however, the new line may not be able to tie into the existing circuit because it may overload it. You may need to add a new circuit, which in turn may necessitate a new panel.

Let There Be LED

A great alternative to hardwiring in new lighting is to install a cool, new USB-charged LED light fixture. They come in a variety of styles from sleek modern to chandeliers and operate for as long as twenty-four hours on a charge.

The Pipes, the Pipes are Calling

Two of the most popular rooms to remodel—kitchens and baths—revolve around water. In the third most popular room, the basement, people often want an additional bathroom, a wet bar or other water feature. Sooner rather than later, you will deal with pipes. And while it’s true that some homes built before 1985 (when using lead was banned in Oregon), may still have lead pipes, there are myriad other issues that make plumbing complicated. 

The first consideration when adding a bathroom should be: how are you going to drain it? In other words, how are you going to get your new pipes to connect to water sources and sewer pipes. You may want the new bath there. But your existing plumbing demands that it go here, by the wall that already accommodates plumbing.

Another issue to consider is galvanic corrosion. This occurs when two dissimilar metals are immersed in a conductive solution that electrically connects them. Water is a conductive solution. Put steel and copper, or stainless steel and aluminum, pipes in one system, add water, and they will corrode, causing leakage at the joints. The cure is to replace the entire system. Arciform specifies PEX  with copper pipes for more stability where it projects through walls. Clearly, walls need to open up to change pipes, so this is the time to make any other behind-the-wall changes, such as blocking for grab bars or replacing water damaged members. 

Want to swap a shower for a bathtub, or vice versa? Not so fast. Because the god of codes has a sense of humor, tub drains are an inch and a half in diameter. Shower drains are two inches. You’ll have to update that connection, which takes up space. Is there enough room to accommodate it? You may have to drill through joists, compromising their strength. Want to put a toilet on the second floor? That requires a trap, so space and drainage limitations apply. Toilets in basements often prove that what flushes down must go up. If your basement is below the sewer line, you’ll need to add a sump pump.

Cool Insulation Workarounds that Will Warm Your Heart

Leaky, old, single pane windows, drafty doors, and lack of insulation are energy loss culprits. If money’s no object you can replace and insulate, of course. But, as always with older homes, there are caveats. And creative alternatives. 

If windows are nonfunctional or rotting, replace them with efficient modern windows. But many older houses have functional, beautiful double hung windows that are part of your home’s history. Plus, wood is more insulating than vinyl or aluminum. These can be augmented with storm windows in winter and solar film in summer—which also protects your furniture and artwork from fading. Or try an old tech workaround. Plant a deciduous tree that shades in summer and allows more light in winter. Install shutters or an awning. Or take the European tack and use heavy curtains. Higher tech shades will automatically close when it gets too bright. 

If a door is malfunctioning or rotting, buy a new, efficient door. But often, new weather stripping does the job just fine. Note that when you install the proper width of weather stripping it will make the door more difficult to close for a while, until the stripping works in. 

Insulating under your main floor (in a crawl space or unfinished basement ceiling) and in your attic will make life more comfortable immediately. Walls present different considerations. If you are already opening up an exterior wall for other work, of course insulate it, and add a vapor barrier, if possible. Another option is blown-in insulation, but it comes with potential pitfalls. It can actually pop off the siding of Victorians, which have no sheathing. As well, older homes may have leakier walls, with ancient tar paper under the siding. They were built so that empty wall cavities would quickly dry out. Fill them with insulation and you’ve created a sponge to hold water. 

Fun and effective alternatives to wall insulation include hanging rugs on walls and adding bookshelves. With the first, you get warmth and art, with the second, insulation and books! Fireplace flues should be closed when there’s no fire. With many people opting for gas inserts, glassing-in the fireplace is essential, since the flue is now always open. As one last, luxurious warming suggestion, if you’re redoing your bathroom floor, add radiant heating under that beautiful new tile.  

Making Space in Your Small House

Older homes were built for less cluttered lifestyles. We simply didn’t have as many electric gadgets back then, and we made do with less space. Rooms were generally walled-in, not open architecture, and kitchens were often much smaller than today’s standard. Today, we prefer more spacious homes, so it’s natural that we want to open things up, knock down walls, add dormers or a bay window, and create a multi-use basement. Older homes sometimes put a damper on these plans. Walls you want gone are load bearing. Even if they’re not, in Victorians—which lack sheathing—those walls may contribute to the strength of the structure. That post in the basement, right where you want to put a pool table, may hold your house up. Even some mansions, with their beautifully appointed great rooms, make it difficult to carve out space for a powder room downstairs. A dinky loo under existing stairs may be the best option. 

All this is not to say that heritage homes can’t be opened up or expanded, but that keeping the structural integrity comes first, so choices must be made carefully. If you do remove walls, or add on to your house, a structural engineer who understands the building techniques used in older homes is essential. 

Challenges foster creativity. A small kitchen can gain space by going vertical, employing apothecary shelving. The same is true in other rooms; if you can’t expand horizontally, what can you do vertically? Spaces can be beautified and made to feel larger with clever paint schemes or well-placed lighting. Add photos or paintings that pull you into the distance. Sometimes hiring a personal organizer to help arrange things—and get rid of things you don’t need—is money best spent. The less you have, the less you need to store. Or think outside of the house. Add a deck or patio, or build a little dining pavilion in your backyard that could be closed in the winter and open in the summer. 

Now You’re (Not) Cooking with Gas

A short time ago, there was a kind of mania for gas ranges—a macho quest for the highest BTUs. But these burners came with problems. They required huge, energy-sucking hoods to capture the exhaust. Plus they sounded like jets taking off, and required an air replacement unit just to return the air that’s pumped out. Finally, it may be hard enough to find space for a gas stove in small, older kitchen; now your remodeler must fit in an air replacement unit, too. And then, of course, there are the deleterious health effects of gas cooking. Those high BTUs were making us sick. 



Anne De Wolf says that 90% of her recent kitchen remodels include switches to induction cooking due to its many advantages. It has zero off-gassing, uses smaller, quieter hoods , requires no air replacement units, and they’re more energy efficient than standard electric ranges. If you’re switching from gas, it does add to your electric load, but that may be a wash if you’re removing a giant hood.

How Not to Shake, Rattle and Roll

We live in earthquake country, and older homes were not built for it. Although many homes have been seismically retrofitted, most have not. Remodeling your basement provides the perfect opportunity to retrofit your home—before new walls are in. It’s a good idea, for safety and for protecting your investment. Even if you get earthquake insurance, there’s a good chance that such companies will not be able to pay all claims in the event of a large quake. Seismic retrofitting may be as simple as anchoring your walls to your foundation. But some older Portland foundations are porous and crumbly and will need to be reinforced first.

The Permit Purgatorio

Reading the tome of residential building codes in Portland is about as fun as reading the fine print on an insurance document. Navigating the permitting and inspection process takes time, patience, and a glossary of construction terms. But all of these rules and regs are there for good reasons; to keep structures standing, make wiring safe, etcetera. Older homes sometimes have existing unpermitted alterations or additions. These may need to be torn out and redone, unless there is good reason to grandfather them in. Working with pros like Arciform who know the codes, and personally know many inspectors, can save a lot of time, money, and frustration.

To DIY or Not to DIY

There are many things homeowners on a limited budget can do themselves, including aesthetic improvements, updating appliances and fixtures, and envisioning a long-term plan for transforming your current home into your future masterpiece. You can also work with a remodeler to establish phased projects that can be done over time. 

For projects that impact structure, electrical, or plumbing in any way, Anne De Wolf says: “Work with a professional. Don’t have some handyman who says,  ‘Yes I can do plumbing. Yes, I can do electrical.’  It’s very dangerous, and it’s going to cost you more than anything else you spend on the house. The trades are there for reason. Check CCB (OR Construction Contractors Board) and make sure they’re licensed. That is the number one advice I would give.” With her twenty-five plus years of creatively updating Portland’s heritage homes, we think that’s sound advice. 

Honoring the Past While Creating Your Future

Modernizing older homes can bring challenges that promote creativity, often leading to unique solutions that add even more charm to our heritage homes. We love these houses for their beauty, attention to detail, and craftsmanship. Embrace those qualities. Think of modernizing your traditional home as listening to its story. Then update that story, while preserving its original intent.