Rehabilitation

Practical Preservation Podcast featuring Josh Blanc of Clay Squared to Infinity

On this week’s episode of the Practical Preservation Podcast, Danielle spoke with Josh Blanc of Clay Squared to Infinity in Minneapolis Minnesota.  From their website, “Clay Squared crafts handmade tiles in many shapes and colors for kitchens, bathrooms, fireplaces, and as art tile. We feature tile by local and national artists and offer the largest selection of …

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Practical Preservation Podcast featuring Amy Heavilin of Vivacious Victorian

Amy Heavilin of Vivacious Victorian joined the Practical Preservation podcast to discuss documenting the restoration of multiple homes!  Amy shares her lessons learned from multiple restoration projects including: know your limits, ask questions, and find local people to build your resource list.  If you are looking for inspiration for your project visit Amy’s blog (after …

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Practical Preservation Podcast Featuring Tom Brennan of Green Garage and the El Moore

Tom Brennan, co-founder of The Green Garage and the El Moore, in Detroit, MI, joined the Practical Preservation Podcast to discuss these properties as innovative examples of sustainable working and living spaces. We covered multiple topics, including: Background information about Tom and his wife and co-founder Peggy, and how they came to initiate and complete …

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SYMPATHETIC ADDITIONS: Adding on Harmoniously

ADDING ON TO A HISTORIC HOME – You’ve found your historic or old home. And it’s nearly perfect…..BUT, maybe it does not have enough room for you. Or maybe you need to make adjustments to age in place. Maybe you want to add a room on your first floor, or even expand a tiny historical …

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AGING IN PLACE: Growing Older in Your (Historic) Home

 AGING IN PLACE IN A HISTORIC HOME – Aging in place generally comes with necessary change to your home, but this is even truer of situations involving a historic home. As with many adaptive reuse projects, one must determine the balance between maintaining historic fabric and making adaptations suitable for aging.  Photo by Boston Public …

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Practical Preservation Podcast Featuring Briana Grosicki of PlaceEconomics

Briana Grosicki, associate principal of PlaceEconomics based in Washington, D.C., joined the Practical Preservation Podcast to discuss the economic benefits of preservation. We covered multiple topics, including: Briana’s background, including growing up regularly visiting local battlefields in Virginia, volunteering with her main street district as a teen, to working with Donovan Rypkema  Briana’s additional roles …

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Coffee Break RECAP: Existing Building Codes

COFFEE BREAK RECAP – This month’s “coffee break” video recap focuses on how to navigate the existing building code and uniform construction code within your historic building project in Pennsylvania. Watch below.   VIDEO SUMMARY: Focus: Exemptions (Existing Building Code) and things liable to the Uniform Construction Code, depending on the parameters of a historic …

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PRESERVATION MONTH PART 2: How to Preserve a Building

PART 2 PRESERVATION MONTH 2020 SERIES LAST WEEK WE PRESENTED PART 1 on Why Preservation Matters. Part 2 of this series focuses on preserving or saving a building. It’s one thing to read and learn about preservation, and it’s a whole other thing to actively do it. While there may be limitations as to what …

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Preservation and Sustainability

Preservation and sustainability. What does one have to do with the other? If we examine these terms more closely, we can see that older buildings are inherently “green” or sustainable because of “embodied energy” (all of the energy used to build the building that would need to be expended to build something else). In fact, …

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