Brian D. Coleman

Products of the Week

Allied Window is a manufacturer of invisible storm windows ®, customized for historic properties and renovation projects. Special shapes and custom colors; interior and exterior applications.

Repair Products & Tools

Woodcraft is one of the nation's oldest and largest suppliers of over 20,000 quality woodworking tools, supplies and services.

Kitchen Cabinetry

Crown Point Cabinetry offers custom cabinets for period style kitchens, baths, offices, laundry rooms, home bars and more. Styles include Shaker, Arts & Crafts, Early American, Victorian and Transitional.

Windows layered in color add ambience—and privacy—to a reading nook.

Interiors & Decorative Accessories

Stained glass windows add color and appeal, changing the quality of the interior light and lending another dimension to the room’s design.

The large kitchen is relatively new. Its rambling layout, well-matched fir beadboard, vintage stove, and copper sink make it look original.

House Tours

Spacious, recuperative, and quaint describe this survivor from the days of mountain camp retreats.

Siding, Shingles & Roofing

By getting creative with your shingling you can add flare and character to your house.

The dining room’s Italian-villa red and avocado green were early colors found on the original plaster. Chris reinstalled a plate rail and wainscoting by following ghosted outlines on the wall; he also replaced columns.

Arts & Crafts Houses

If you keep it simple, you can restore a period home on a modest budget.

The gutsy centerpiece of the living room is the 10'-diameter mirror from the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach.

House Tours

Using salvaged materials, a vacant lot gets transformed into a SoHo townhome fully designed to look as if it were built in the late-19th century, just like its neighbors.

Two Victorian cast-iron newel posts anchor a wood balustrade.

Interiors & Decorative Accessories

Used with a wood or wrought-iron balustrade, a salvaged cast-iron newel post adds history.

Digital

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Open shelving in the kitchen helps keep the space light and airy; the family room is seen beyond.

Arts & Crafts Houses

This 1906 Craftsman was too good to raze—so its preservation-minded owners moved it to a new location.

The former schoolroom soars 30' and is lit by a pair of Pugin chandeliers. Left intact is the carved wooden partition that separated students from the schoolmistresses' quarters. The furniture is a comfortable mix.

House Tours

A long-time collector of Gothic invites us to his home, a converted schoolhouse done in Arts & Crafts taste.

Kitchen Furnishings & Appliances

Embossed “tin ceiling” panels can be used to create a cabinet front, disguising a modern refrigerator.

Arts & Crafts furniture includes the reissued Stickley oak pedestal table and chairs. In its simplicity, the modern Artemide Logico Suspension triple chandelier is a good fit.

House Tours

This deceptively simple 1937 house offered sturdy brick construction, heavy moldings, and romantic arches—even Batchelder tiles. But it needed TLC.

A slant-top variant of a desk-on-frame, this early example is precursor of the familiar schoolhouse desk.

Interiors & Decorative Accessories

Desks of any sort were uncommon before public education created greater literacy at the start of the 19th century. Here's a look at common early desks.

The house is an eye-catching oriental expression with upturned gables and carvings; second-story balconies with curved railings are reminiscent of a Shinto temple.

House Tours

A rare example of turn-of-the-century exoticism is lovingly preserved in Prospect Park South.

Art Nouveau wallpaper from Switzerland (now discontinued) dresses up a tiny bedroom.

Wallpapering

Picking the right wallpaper is easy with a little historical understanding.

The rustic 1930s cabin was raised and a daylight basement added beneath. The exterior features log siding, cedar shakes, and fieldstone masonry.

Interiors & Decorative Accessories

On this pretty sweep of Pacific Northwest shoreline, a rustic cabin is remodeled as a year-round home by the great-grandson of its builder.

The Whim was designed by Frederick Delafield in 1908. The winding bed of perennials along the approach to the house is intact, though plants have changed over the years.

Garden Design

A rare insight into period gardening comes from glass-slide images taken during the heyday of the summer colony at Onteora, in New York’s Catskill Mountains.

Shirred lace panels suit big windows in a Victorian-period kitchen. Photo: Blackstone Edge

Old-House Kitchens

A portfolio of simple, effective window treatments that add color and style in the hardest-working room.

Surprising neoclassical columns in mahogany support beams in the entry hall with keystone arches between them, lending a formal air and creating an inviting seating nook.

Arts & Crafts Houses

Artistic yet proper, this 1909 house boasts neoclassical details along with its river-rock chimney and beams.

Original Minton tiles illustrate the legend of King Arthur in the bedroom of an 1892 house.

Interiors & Decorative Accessories

A scrapbook of fireplace surrounds from the Victorian and Arts & Crafts eras sparks ideas for today. Also, important steps to take before installation.