Demetra Aposporos

Products of the Week

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.

Doors & Entryways

Vintage Doors' hand-crafted wood product line includes: screen doors, storm doors, Dutch doors, French doors, louver doors, pantry doors, interior doors, exterior doors, entrance units, three season porch enclosures, pet doors, arch top doors, round top doors, custom doors and more.

Brass, Bronze & Copper Hardware

Classic-style door hardware, engineered for new construction or historic renovation, lacquer-coated, solid brass, patterned after original antique hardware, passage, privacy, mortise lock, or dummy sets and cabinet hardware and accessories.

Fountains were a popular application for art tile—especially in the West. A mural of vivid peacocks strutting amidst flora shows California-style art tiles at their bright, earthy best.

Decorative Tile

From authentic to transitional, art tile in early 20th century designs is easier to find than ever before. Some basic background can help narrow your search for the perfect tile.

Northeastern Historic Sites

To understand why the Palmer House is so special, you need only enter the lobby.

The restored bathroom in an 1894 house boasts a complex mosaic floor that resembles a richly detailed rug.

Bathroom Furnishings & Fixtures

Mosaic floor tile patterns, from simple to elaborate, can be a great fit for old-house bathrooms.

Pottery, Artwork & Glass

Figured glass added beauty, light, and privacy to houses by fusing form and function.

Lights flanking a mirror cut down on harsh shadows and offered optimum illumination for grooming. The shades here-called turtles because of their resemblance to the critter-could also be mounted facing the wall, and often sat on brackets made of porcelain that featured convenient, built-in electrical outlets. Photo Courtesy of Linda Svendsen

Interior Lighting

When it comes to lighting bathrooms of the 1930s and '40s, you can't go wrong with a little Modern design.

Mercer tiles above the main entrance display dates of architectural changes; 2008 blends in with tilework set in 1904—much as the current restoration proves a seamless fit.

Arts & Crafts Houses

Despite a failing roof and decades of damage, an Arts & Crafts home gets rescued and restored.

Digital

E-newsletters

This narrow antique table creates a simple island workspace with a vintage vibe.

Kitchen Furnishings & Appliances

Oversized islands may be everywhere these days, but they didn’t exist in early kitchens. Still, the concept of a separate workspace started showing up as early as the 18th century, which means it is possible to design an island for today's needs while hewing to historical examples.

Radiators painted in elaborate color schemes became popular around 1900. This example, featuring colors to match the wallpaper and hand-detailed vines, was features in an American Radiator Company souvenir book from 1905.

Interior Paints & Finishes

Two techniques, borrowed from the past, transform radiators into artwork.

The Zeiger family—Todd and Terri, with kids Jacob, Rachael, and Lindsey (left to right)—beside their 1949 Lustron at the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.

Mid-Century Modern Houses

Lustron houses are prefabricated enameled steel houses developed in the post-World War II era United States in response to the shortage of homes for returning GIs.

A vision in blooms awaits visitors, many of whom arrive by carriage.

Historic Hotels

A visit to this gracious beauty, The Grand Hotel, located on an island between Michigan’s Upper and Lower Peninsulas, is a rite of passage for Midwesterners.

Arts & Crafts movement ideals live on at Grove Park, evident in the building's design.

Historic Hotels

Hardware & Metalwork

Today’s hinges come in a variety of traditional shapes, sizes, and styles. Here’s how to find the best fit for your old-house cabinets.

The dining room houses an Eastlake sideboard, which became the inspiration for the new kitchen cabinets.

Queen Anne Houses

See how one Chicago Queen Anne got a fresh look.

The floor’s floral-patterned hex tiles continue unbroken through the shower, adding to the spacious feel.

Period Bathrooms

We explore two ways to create a vintage-inspired bathroom.

Laura and John Lazet's salvaged sink is a perfect complement to custom cabinetry—in a range of sizes and depths—that the Lazets modeled on built-ins in the house's original, untouched pantry.

Kitchen Furnishings & Appliances

Today's kitchen restorations involve hundreds of decisions. Take for example that prosaic workhorse, the kitchen sink.

The solarium at the Strong House is full of colorful Faience tiles, and capped by panelized plaster that was fully restored by the homeowners.

Decorative Tile

The handmade tiles of the Flint Faience Tile Company grew out of the fledgling 1920s auto industry.

Built by a General Motors executive, the Mediterranean Revival house is an architectural tour de force.

House Tours

A grand home gets a new lease on life, thanks to owners intent on protecting its architectural past.

Exterior Lighting

When deciding on your porch light, the good news is that more than one light type can be the right choice.

The reconfigured kitchen is open and sunny, thanks to an expansive new doorway that incorporates the former butler’s pantry and mudroom into the kitchen proper.

Old-House Kitchens

The sensitive updating of a gracious kitchen in Portland, Oregon, includes a bit of period French flair.

Rows of different designs often exhibited different colors, like the square and round cuts here on the Hale House at the Heritage Square Museum in Los Angeles.

Siding, Shingles & Roofing

One of the hallmarks of the Victorian era was a desire to be noticed. It's a theme that repeated itself on every aspect of home furnishings of the day. Furniture was dripping in ornament, hardware was intricately incised, and buildings were adorned with every manner of attention-grabbing detail—from gingerbread trim to stained glass windows to seductively turned porch rails. Even exterior walls vied for attention through rows of patterned shingles, a technique with the funny- and formal-sounding name imbrication.