Design advice request

I've been renovating my house for some time and am finally at the point where I need to make a decision on what to do with the front entrance.



Here's more context..



Here's a close-up of the door and the storm door,



Here's a close-up of just the door,



And here's a pic of the interior of the door and the front hallway.



Basically, I'm not happy with the way the front porch area looks, but am not sure what to do about it. I could paint the door, but maybe it looks better unpainted. Maybe I should just coat it with waterproofing chemicals. And should I paint the interior of the door the same as the exterior, or a different colour, or not at all? I really dislike the storm door and the hideous windows attached to it (not talking about the front bay window). But it is an old house and probably needs the storm door to keep cold winter air out. If I remove the storm, I'll have to remove the whole brown aluminum and plexiglass sections around it, which means I'll have to hire a contractor to replace all that with something, and probably buy new windows; that's going to cost too much. So for now, I'm looking for a simpler solution that I can do myself.

I also dislike the stone in this area. So does nearly everyone else who has commented on it. Should I paint it? Should I cover it up with some other type of material? Or does it look ok?

So I'm looking for suggestions on:
1. Whether I should paint anything and if so, what colours?
2. Should I rip anything out, ie. storm doors, stonework, and replace it, or not replace it?
3. Any other suggestions involving what you see in the photos.

You can't really see it but there's a white steel door leading out to the balcony above. It doesn't look bad. There's no screen door installed there but I think I might want to install one since I don't have A/C. But only if it adds to the attractiveness of the house or at least doesn't take away from it. For example, the screen door at the front porch definitely reduces the attractiveness of the house.

Looking forward to your suggestions!

What's going on here? There's an identity crisis to solve.

Looks like a Toronto Bay & Gable that had a "Portuguese renovation" circa 1963. What a mess. It needs to be put back to it's original victorian stock condition.

Have no idea what your budget is, but the entire "balcony" needs to be removed. That awful angel stone might be right over the original brick and might be able to be knocked off. The bits of aluminum siding needs to be replaced with wood. The third floor triangular bit needs to be replaced with proper victorian barge board. The front door/entrance needs to be more appropriate.

But for starters, I'd find somewhere else to keep my garbage can/recycling bin....very unsightly.

Originally Posted by freshcutgrass

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Looks like a Toronto Bay & Gable that had a "Portuguese renovation" circa 1963. What a mess. It needs to be put back to it's original victorian stock condition.

Have no idea what your budget is, but the entire "balcony" needs to be removed. That awful angel stone might be right over the original brick and might be able to be knocked off. The bits of aluminum siding needs to be replaced with wood. The third floor triangular bit needs to be replaced with proper victorian barge board. The front door/entrance needs to be more appropriate.

But for starters, I'd find somewhere else to keep my garbage can/recycling bin....very unsightly.

I've already sunk a ton of cash and years of effort into this house and there's still a great deal more to do inside. I think I'm nearing the limits of what would make sense to spend on this place in terms of time and money. So I don't think I'll be able to correct all the aesthetic damage that's been done although I would love to. You would have thrown up if you had seen it before.

Yes, your assumptions are very accurate. It's a Bay & Gable and at least one of the previous owners was Portuguese.

You say I should remove the entire balcony. Do you mean the main level porch area, or are you including the upper balcony?

Is there anything I can do to just spruce it up? Another full-on renovation with contractors and everything.. this house is already killing me.

There's not really anywhere else to put the garbage can. The side of the house is already crammed with these stupid bins the City forces us to have. The neighbour on that side even complained when I continued the practice of the previous owner of putting all the garbage cans and bins there. The back of the house is inconvenient as there is no quick access from any part of the house. I might as well walk around the block to get to the backyard.

Originally Posted by pontifex

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There's not really anywhere else to put the garbage can. The side of the house is already crammed with these stupid bins the City forces us to have. The neighbour on that side even complained when I continued the practice of the previous owner of putting all the garbage cans and bins there.
Your bins, your house, your property. Put 'em on the side and the neighbor can suck it.

Originally Posted by binge

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Your bins, your house, your property. Put 'em on the side and the neighbor can suck it.

Done.

I think I'm nearing the limits of what would make sense to spend on this place in terms of time and money.

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Badly bastardized victorians have serious equity devaluation compared to intact or restored ones. Whatever you spend getting it to an acceptable level of restoration will pay off well in an equity boost when you do. If its a victorian and its previous owner was Portuguese, then I imagine it is in the College-Dundas Ossington vicinity. Old vics in old nabs in the city are always desirable, and will only become more so each and every year (they can build a zillion new condos, but they can't build any more old victorian streets). And yours is a detached...even better. As bas as that is, the Portuguese did MUCH worse (I don't mean to pick on the Portuguese, but they seem to have done the most damage in the nabs they moved into during the post war immigration). A lot of the time, they just completely flat-fronted very nice victorians...and covered in the most vomit-inducing brick and wrought iron. Seriously...I walk down some streets in the Portuguese areas, and I can't help but laugh at the sheer eye cancer that is their taste. My friend and I are currently completely renovating one of his Bay'N Gables on Lakeview Ave (Ossington-Dundas area) very similar to yours (except it's a semi). The semi attached to his just sold instantly for $825k (he paid $72k back in the 80's for his). Two semis a block away that were flat-fronted as I mentioned earlier, were completely "re-victorianized. Doesn't matter what it costs, as it increases the value by more than you spend.

You say I should remove the entire balcony. Do you mean the main level porch area, or are you including the upper balcony?

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Yes...I mean that wrought iron/aluminum siding contraption. Either it's an authentic victorian "porch"...or it isn't. This isn't. The steps and floor areas can be worked with.

Is there anything I can do to just spruce it up? Another full-on renovation with contractors and everything.. this house is already killing me.

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Well, it doesn't look like anything has been done with the front of the house at all. What did you do...remove the Madonna statue from the front? ha ha (a little Portuguese joke) If you aren't up for a proper victorian porch, then just don't have one at all...they look fine without them...and especially without the one you have. I think getting rid of the angel stone is a non-negotiable. Not only is it ugly and inappropriate...they didn't even cover all the brick with it...it's bizarre how they only covered one side of the bay and the front entrance. Does your front door lead to a small vestibule that also has a door? If so, you don't need that unsightly aluminum storm door. A nicely refinished vintage front door needs to be seen. Here's a few pics that give a vague idea of at least acceptable condition....it doesn't have to look like something from the Annex or Cabbagetown...just not offensive. Uploaded with ImageShack.usUploaded with ImageShack.us

There's not really anywhere else to put the garbage can. The side of the house is already crammed with these stupid bins the City forces us to have. The neighbour on that side even complained when I continued the practice of the previous owner of putting all the garbage cans and bins there.

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Why would you want to use anything but the city garbage bins? You keep them out of site until garbage day. Why would anybody prefer keeping garbage bins in plain site at the front of a house?. If I was your neighbour, I'd complain they are not out of site. Put them anywhere BUT the front of your house...it really detracts from the curb appeal, and devalues every house on the street.

I have been here so long, dealing with the condition this house is in, I find it impossible to get up in the morning sometimes. I've lost the ability to function around other people. Everything else in my life does not exist anymore. It's time to either get rid of it or fix it once and for all, or die.

I'm embarrassed by the condition of the house. I appreciate your attempts at humour but please don't push me too far. I didn't make the house look like this. I'm trying to do what I can to rectify the damage and clean it up. Unfortunately, I'm not a contractor and I have limited skills and knowledge in this area. "What did you buy it for," you ask? The answer is, I didn't know what I was getting into. I needed a place to live. I recognized the hidden beauty of this particular house. I bid on it. Nobody else did. I thought it would be an interesting, profitable, and fulfilling challenge which would have been completed by now. I thought if I applied myself to problems one by one, I would solve them. Now I realize that only happens in the movies. I now know trying to solve a problem only compounds that problem and others that are tangential to it even as it creates new problems.

Yes, I removed the madonna statue. I sold it to the guy who owns the house in your first photo.

To make this house resemble the houses in those photos of yours would require contractors and an obscene amount of cash. I still need a ton of cash to finish repairing the interior damage the previous owners, and myself, have inflicted. What's more important, renovating the semi-gutted interior, or making the exterior look like real estate pornography? I want both, but need to be realistic.

However, there are problems with contractors. Not money problems. Worse.

If I bring in contractors to finish the exterior, they won't be interested in restoring it, they would insist on using plastic, melamine and vinyl instead of wood, plaster, copper, and steel. They won't use the historical mix of mortar for the bricks. They'll just use the modern mix; what do they care when it deteriorates after 15 years and has to be redone? They'll be long gone. No matter that it's a 100-year old house and you're not supposed to need to replace things like that so often. The previous owners pulled that trick, now it's 15 years later and I'm stuck dealing with it. I know all this because I've been going through hell for years trying to get qualified advice and assistance on this project. Everywhere I turn I find hacks and poorly-trained 'professionals'. I get clowns coming in here and telling me they're going to remove all the 'ugly and old' copper pipes so they can replace them with PVC, "because it's easier to work with". I get losers trying to sell me vinyl siding along with the vinyl windows they're peddling. They tell me they want to paint everything white, replace the original windows with white vinyl ones, etc. I have to fight these people and their ideas off. Sometimes they manage to convince me they're right even though their solution is probably a crime in the style world. They're trying to turn it into a Walmart house. I went through 2 designers. I explained that it was a Victorian, I wanted it restored on the outside and modernized inside while retaining original features such as the moldings, the 10" real hardwood baseboards, the wooden floors, and the door hardware; I showed them hundreds of pictures of what I wanted; they didn't care. They gave me designs based on stuff they like instead. Stuff you might see in a cookie-cutter condo. They think it's a good idea to rip out the baseboards and the floors, because then I can just go to Home Depot and get a shiny new laminate floor that will go perfectly with the new pre-coated melamine baseboards. They wouldn't even answer my questions about what to do to the exterior, because they don't know. You set a pack of these people loose here, it'll be worse than a 'Portuguese Renovation'.

I wasted a year with these designers. Money down the f---ing drain.

So I could try to finish it myself, to make it look like those houses in your photos. Except I don't know how. I don't have the tools or the know-how. I don't even know what questions to ask until it's too late. Even IF I get the right answer to a question, that doesn't mean I can actually do it. I've been trying that for years and now I know better than to try something brand new to me and expect to have excellent results.

I'm not near College/Ossington, I'm further west. I doubt if even a beautiful, fully restored, fully functional Victorian with all Portuguese influence removed, would sell for $825,000 in this neighbourhood. It's a nice street and all the other houses are in better condition than mine, but still..

I could probably remove the angel stone myself. But what if there's a problem behind it? Maybe there's a reason why somebody put it there. Sure, he could have chosen something more pleasing to the eye. He could have hired a mason to repair the original brick and mortar if it was deteriorating or something. I mean, if he was hiring a mason anyways to create this visual insult that I see every time I walk up the steps. Or maybe he did it himself; maybe he was a mason, people actually paid him to do this to their homes, he fell in love with the concept, and decided to commit the same crime on his own home. But he must have installed the loathsome angel stone for a reason such as covering up a problem behind it. Otherwise, he should be located, taken out and shot.

Removing the entire balcony, then replacing it with something tasteful, that's a project for a contractor. Like, I can't just leave the balcony door there if there's no balcony. Finding someone who can/will do that, so it resembles one of the well-kept Victorians in the Annex or Cabbagetown, becomes the challenge. Or else I'm going to end up with a Walmart-y entrance and balcony. In which case, I may as well leave it in its present insulting state.

After much searching I found a crew to renovate the upper interior of the house. These guys were pretty good. Not perfect, but I would probably recommend them to anyone who asked. They incorporated many of my concerns into their work and let me work along with them. But they were expensive. I don't want to know how much they would cost to redo the whole exterior. And some of the sub-contractors they brought in, that's where most of the problems happened. I am really not looking forward to going through that again.

I was hoping there would be something I could quickly do to spruce up the front exterior - to make it look good - without involving contractors, permits, maybe another hack designer, and tens of thousands of dollars before turning my attention back inside. But I guess not.

About the bins..
I use the bins. One problem with them, I find, is that because of these new bins, the lazy, unionized garbagemen don't need to get out of their trucks anymore. They just push a button and this crane lifts them in the air and turns them not quite upside down. Anything not in bags blows all over the place. Some of the stuff stays in the bin, stuck to the inside. The garbagemen aren't actually making any effort at all to collect garbage, they're just playing a video game where they grab these bins and lift them and put them down. They no longer consider it their job to collect garbage. Their job is now the video game. So you can't just throw things into the bin. You need to bag things and bag the bags. Then you throw the bags in the bin. You can put a large empty garbage bag in a normal garbage can, throw a bunch of stuff in it, and when it's full, tie it and throw it in the bin. Then when our overpaid unionized friends push the button in the cab of their air-conditioned truck, there's no way anything will get left behind.

I'm renovating a house, remember? I need a lot of garbage cans. I can bring them inside to where I'm working. Then when I'm finished, I can put them outside so I don't have to look at them. I can't bring the bins inside because they won't fit in the door or up/down the stairs.

I have been here so long, dealing with the condition this house is in, I find it impossible to get up in the morning sometimes. I've lost the ability to function around other people. Everything else in my life does not exist anymore. It's time to either get rid of it or fix it once and for all, or die.

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Hmmm...it's just a house...not a Borderline wife you just realized you shouldn't have married. If your sanity is at stake...you amputate the problem...whether it's a wife...or a house. Personally, since you bought the place in 1995, your best bet is to go for option #2.

I recognized the hidden beauty of this particular house. I bid on it. Nobody else did. I thought it would be an interesting, profitable, and fulfilling challenge which would have been completed by now. I thought if I applied myself to problems one by one, I would solve them. Now I realize that only happens in the movies. I now know trying to solve a problem only compounds that problem and others that are tangential to it even as it creates new problems.

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Well, you started off great. But you have to be willing and able to pull it off. Ok...so you discovered you weren't quite up to the job till now...not like your the first person to discover this. The good news is, you can recover and still come out ahead. It doesn't just happen in the movies...look around...thousands of these same houses in the city are being beautifully restored every day. And actually, the beauty isn't even all that hidden...all your problems are superficial...not structural.

I wanted it restored on the outside and modernized inside while retaining original features such as the moldings, the 10" real hardwood baseboards, the wooden floors, and the door hardware

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If you still have all your original baseboards, door mouldings, transoms, etc...then don't replace them....restore them. I think I have wet-stripped a mile of mouldings. It's not that hard or time consuming at all, and worth the effort. Oak strip floors are generally a 1920's add on in victorians...under them are wide plank original hemlock boards...they look very nice when stripped & stained. Or just put whatever flooring over it you want...as long as it's not cheap laminate. Why do you give so much power to these idiot contractors...if you let them dictate to you...they will. You have a vision of what you want...you don't ask them their opinions...that's not their job. But that's the interior....your question is about the exterior. The plan here is really quite simple....first thing you do is remove the crap that needs removing...none of it is structural and none of it needs permits (that I'm aware of), and you can take all the time you need (things may have to get a little uglier before they get better). But I can't see tearing off any of the things that need removing as doing anything but looking better anyway. Remove that "balcony" thing...right down to the landing/steps. Now you've exposed the exterior and can see better as to what is involved in removing the angel stone.

I could probably remove the angel stone myself.

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So do it.

But what if there's a problem behind it? Maybe there's a reason why somebody put it there. Sure, he could have chosen something more pleasing to the eye.

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Nope...at the time, they actually thought they were improving the house with "modern" updates. They actually think that discusting brick & wrought iron crap looks better than original victorian details. Remember...few people appreciated victorian design back in the 60's. Consider the entire brick front of the house as one project. Then you have the entire brick front of the house power-washed. Of course it needs repointing...as do ALL victorians. Some of the bricks may need to be replaced. None of this is difficult to do...and gets done all the time. This is where the money goes...and it will pay off. Don't worry about the door to the old balcony on the second floor...if you opt to not replace with a new, proper victorianized balcony (which will cost money and isn't necessary anyway), then just replace it with a window (all part of the front facade project). Adding matched bricks & lintels is not a big deal. Windows can always be done at a later date when all the other work is done. If you really want something over the front door, then just get a nice awning.

I'm not near College/Ossington, I'm further west. I doubt if even a beautiful, fully restored, fully functional Victorian with all Portuguese influence removed, would sell for $825,000 in this neighbourhood.

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Where then...Parkdale...Roncy...Dufferin Grove...Junction? That's fine...it just means the area still has to see its big equity pop when people are priced out of every other area. My friend also has an old vic in the Junction...he bought that for $62k back in the 80's as well. It's only appraised around $425k at the moment, but that area is quickly gaining equity. As an investor, places like Riverdale are already maxed out in terms of massive equity pop.

I never said I bought this in 1995. I bought it much more recently than that. If I had been living here for that long, I would have hanged myself by now.

I think I created the equity pop you mention when I bought in. There were bidding wars on every other house I tried to buy, and I lost all of them. Finally I bid too much on this one, assuming I would lose anyways. Guess what, I won. Lucky me..

The photos of the front entrance may show only cosmetic issues. That doesn't mean there are no structural problems that I haven't provided photos of.

I don't have all the original moldings and hardware. Some were removed or destroyed by previous owners. I also destroyed a couple of things initially based upon stupid advice from philistines which I stupidly listened to before coming to my senses. There was apparently a transom window at one time, the idiots pulled it out and replaced it with aluminum siding.
I found some of those hemlock boards, if they are hemlock, on the third floor, underneath some appalling linoleum. I had them restored and they are now one of the most beautiful features of the house. The oak strip flooring on the 2nd floor has also been restored, whether it's orignal or not. It also looks great.

Why do I let moron contractors tell me what to do. I started out here trying to fix everything myself but quickly learned I did not know what I was doing. I was mainly creating new problems. I sought out advice, which was different depending on who was giving it. I sadly listened to some people even though they were giving bad advice. I didn't know their advice was wrong. I read books, went on the internet, asked people, looked for examples; the advice is always different. Who knows who's right or wrong.
Happily, I think I have rejected most of the bad advice I have gotten. Like the clown who wanted to rip out the copper pipes. The same guy also wanted to lower the hallway ceiling, because he said it was too dark. How that was supposed to make it brighter, I have no idea. And the designer who thought I should rip out all the baseboards and moldings. I thought I was dealing with a professional who knew more than me. So I ripped out one, it wouldn't fit in the garbage bin, and I felt like a criminal cutting it up into pieces so it would fit. It took a long time to cut it up because it was solid wood. Then, I fired that designer.
I don't know if I'm right or wrong. Sometimes I have a contractor doing something and it looks to me like they made a mistake. So if I say something, they show me it's not wrong and they explain why, and I feel stupid because now they're angry at me for accusing them of something, and I'm angry at myself for causing a problem when there wasn't one. So the next time, I don't say anything, and then every day I look at what looks like an obvious mistake and get angrier and angrier, and the contractor is long gone. Maybe it isn't a mistake. I don't know. I'm not a construction worker. I don't know what finished product 'A' or 'B' is normally like.

I said I could probably remove the angel stone myself, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea for me to just start doing that. I mean, I could probably find a blunt object and some kind of chisel and attack it. Maybe that would just create a large mess. Maybe I would damage the underlying brick. Then there would still be the cement porch, and the balcony which is attached to the angel stone, and I would probably need to find a way to set up scaffolding somewhere, and it's a nightmare that I'm not going to attempt. There's a balcony door that would become unuseable. It would be sitting there halfway up the building, a glaring, obvious safety hazard. It would take me maybe a year or longer to work through all those complications. If anyone from the City happened to drive by and see this, or was tipped off by some of the neighbours, I'd be finished. There are neighbours, there's where do I put my car when the bin is sitting there for a year; I'm not a construction worker and these challenges are easy only for someone who has some kind of experience in these areas already, so they have reference points.

I'm not willing to live through that kind of experience. It's been bad enough already.

I want a presentable front of the house, but not if I have to rip down the balcony and build a new one. And I would, to get at all of the angel stone. And that affects the entire porch area, which would have to be rebuilt. And if I'm going to mess around with that, I might as well deal with other nearby issues, not cosmetic issues. So I need contractors anyways. And plans. And permits. And more money than is worth spending, I've already spent too much and there's another renovation scheduled.

My advice: Paint your house white. All of it, to hide the contrasting bricks. Give any leftover paint to NYRanger so he can paint his door. Add a slate roof. Install black window boxes. Something like this. Or this.

Originally Posted by StephenHero

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Give any leftover paint to NYRanger so he can paint his door.

You're in Toronto . . . call Mike Holmes.

lefty

Originally Posted by StephenHero

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My advice:

Paint your house white. All of it, to hide the contrasting bricks. Give any leftover paint to NYRanger so he can paint his door.

Add a slate roof.

Install black window boxes.


I think brick houses look better unpainted. I've read that it's considered a bad thing to paint bricks unless they're in really bad shape. But I'll ask some people what they think of that.

The roof has been replaced recently and doing that isn't cheap.

I just installed beige windows on the 2nd and 3rd floor. The contractors told me it was a good idea. Actually, they were really pushing me to pick white, I wanted black, and beige was a compromise. That means I can't put black ones in on the main floor. Anyways, I'm not replacing the brand new beige windows.