Guides
Part of 5 details of historic home restoration people miss
A first-year checklist for restoring a historic home without regret
A first-year checklist for a new old-house owner: what to test, photograph, measure and ask, in the order that prevents expensive surprises later.
What to take away
- Record before you change. This historic home restoration checklist begins with the house as it stands: spend the first year recording it rather than changing it.
- Test before you touch. Test for lead and asbestos before any sanding, scraping or demolition, including your own.
- Get the rules in writing. Find out whether the property sits in a designated district and what that means for exterior work.
- Walk the roof line and the perimeter in heavy rain. Nothing else reveals as much for as little.
- Close the file before you spend. A hazard file, a photo record, a rain diary and two written answers from public offices are what a realistic sequence is built from.
New owners want to start. The most useful first year is mostly looking, testing and writing things down, so that the second year spends money on the right wall.
Record the building
Photograph all four elevations from a fixed spot, then every room from two corners, then every detail you cannot explain. Date the files and back them up. If a feature later has to be removed, that photograph becomes the pattern for its replacement.
Measure the rooms and the openings while you are there. Dimensions recorded now are what a later drawing, order or permit application gets built on.
The Federal Historic Preservation Tax Incentives program, run by the National Park Service with the Internal Revenue Service, has thought hard about what a complete record looks like, and its documentation requirements for certification applications describe photo keys, floor plans and naming conventions. The program certifies only work that meets the Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Rehabilitation, the same standards most local commissions borrow as their yardstick. You are not applying for anything, but the format is a free template for organizing a house file that will still make sense in a decade.
Test before you touch
- Lead paintassume it on any surface painted before 1978 until tested. At the sale, Title X, the federal Residential Lead-Based Paint Hazard Reduction Act, should have produced a disclosure of any known lead paint or hazards. Testing itself belongs to a certified lead-based paint inspector or risk assessor, who either reads the paint in place with an XRF analyzer or sends paint chips to a laboratory for bulk sampling.
- Asbestossuspect pipe wrap, duct mastic, resilient floor tile, some siding and some plaster. Sampling belongs to an accredited asbestos inspector, and disturbance or removal is governed by the federal NESHAP asbestos rules, with state rules often stricter.
- Wiringhave an electrician identify what type of service and branch wiring you have.
- Chimneyshave flues inspected before lighting anything.
- Watercheck well or supply piping, and look for lead service lines.
None of these are optional and none of them are guesswork, and the results decide who may legally do the work. The EPA's Renovation, Repair and Painting (RRP) Rule requires a certified firm and a certified renovator for paid work that disturbs paint in pre-1978 housing, and it reaches an owner-occupant who rents the house out or runs a childcare business in it. Paying for that knowledge early is also how you learn what the budget is really up against, because the unopened conditions are exactly what a contingency has to absorb.
Find out what rules apply
Two answers matter most. Your local building department tells you what permits are needed and which code edition it has adopted. If the house sits in a locally designated historic district, and the designation comes from a local preservation ordinance rather than from the National Register, a historic district commission may have to approve a certificate of appropriateness for exterior changes before a permit is issued. Ask for the ordinance and the design guidelines in writing, so the commission review does not surprise you mid-project.
Separately, ask whether the property is listed in or eligible for the National Register. The Park Service answers the common misconceptions in its National Register questions and answers, including the frequent surprise that listing does not by itself restrict what a private owner does with private money.
Watch the water
| When | What to look at |
|---|---|
| During heavy rain | Gutter overflow, downspout discharge, ponding at the foundation |
| After rain | Damp basement walls, staining on interior plaster |
| Winter | Ice dams, condensation on window interiors |
| Spring | Efflorescence on masonry, soft mortar joints |
| Any dry day | Attic sheathing, chimney flashing, sill condition |
Write the observations in the same file as the photographs. Patterns show up over four seasons that a single inspection cannot catch.
Plan year two, not year one
By the end of the first year the checklist should be closed out: a hazard file holding the test results, a dated photo record, a rain diary covering four seasons, and two written answers from public offices. That is enough to build a sequence, which is set out in the whole-house restoration guide, and enough to be realistic about duration, which is discussed in our timeline for old-house projects.
