The Roff Home Blog » renovation

Victorian floors in the front parlor: Unraveling the mystery of original use

The Roff Home — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 05:35:38 +0000

The Victorian floors in the Roff Home have been a mystery, especially the front parlor's baffling combination of plain plank flooring and ornate trim. My restoration of the flooring and my own use of the room helped the mystery be unraveled.

Victorian front parlor: period carpet and wallpaper reproductions

The Roff Home — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 04:36:34 +0000

Great reproductions of period Victorian carpeting and period wallpaper from the Victorian and Arts & Craft eras for a Victorian front parlor.

21st-century Victorian decorating with Christopher Lowell

The Roff Home — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 18:05:28 +0000

Here's a video clip from Christopher Lowell's Work That Room in which he adds an upbeat, energetic retro feel to a young couple's Victorian home, combining Victorian flourishes with 60s-style mid-century modern.

Roff Home steam radiators refinished and renewed!

The Roff Home — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 05:10:13 +0000

This summer, as floors were being redone and windows repainted, we took out the cast iron steam radiators from the first floor of the Roff Home, hauled them to a guy in Stockland, Illinois. He sandblasted the radiators, and then I repainted them, first with a couple of base coats of primer and then two or three coats of a silver metallic paint.

The master of plaster restores Victorian walls at the Roff Home

The Roff Home — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 03:45:57 +0000

Over the summer and fall, we took on the task of plaster restoration at the Roff Home.

Victorian flooring in the front parlor is finished!

The Roff Home — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 03:10:48 +0000

The Victorian flooring of the front parlor of the Roff Home is finished!

Front parlor flooring: Victorian Italianate renovation dilemma of the week

The Roff Home — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:34:48 +0000

[NOTE! As of 12-16-09, the front parlor flooring is finished! Read the update here!] As those of you know who read this blog and the main website, the Roff Home is a Victorian Italianate residence that was built in 1868. Its last major renovation took place in 1940.

I’ve taken on the task of peeling back layers of renovation and [...]