Congratulations! Unless the plaster is falling off the walls and ceilings, there is no reason to replace it with drywall. Our plaster was put up in 1803.

Did you blow in insulation in your home?

What is the exterior cladding? Wood?

It was originally wood but his grandmother had vinyl siding it at some point. It's in pretty good shape still.

Its beautiful. It would be something I would tackle, if I were many years younger.

Easy enough, when its warm, to insulate from the exterior then. That is the route I would go. Leave the plaster alone. Messy work and might have asbestos in it.

It looks gorgeous!

I was told by a Landmarks person that blown-in insulation in a frame structure with plaster draws moisture and it can make the walls sag. Is that true? Anyone had this happen?? Also, what is the cost comparison on new windows vs. rehabbing the original wavy glass ones? Thank you so much for your input!!

Its hard to say on the plaster without seeing it, I would want someone that is experienced in working with plaster. Keep in mind the plaster may have asbestos and Lead paint.

You might want get an energy audit done.

Insulating is tough one, and I am no expert. I do know many insulation companies here won‘t touch anything that has knob and tube wiring or has vermiculite. I can find as much information as to why you should insulate your walls or why you shouldn’t. The Windows will be a personal choice and the cost hard to predict. Your windows seem to be pretty solid and a good candidate for restoration. Seems like you have many things to address and a budget with some limitations. I’d say add it all up and then plan on spending at least another 20% and see where your at.

Yes, I feel like you do. I just found an 1890s photo of the home that a local historian had in his possession and little has changed except the shutters are gone and the sleeping porch's railing rotted away. I love the house!! My hubby is more of the dollars and cents one who wants to make it "maintenance free." I love it as it is, but it does need love. And I just don't know how much it will cost to rehabilitate the windows, shore up the chimneys, make the other essential changes and add heating and air. Grandma used a furnace to heat two rooms and she lived in them exclusively. As a family of four, we need the whole house to be comfortable. Thank you for sharing your experience and I'll pass the information to my husband. I'm working on him. ;)

You would have to figure in cost for repairing walls and adding chases for heating/cooling system as well . Figure in a bunch of time and headache when dealing with a bunch of subcontractors

One key is to hire plumbers and electricians who are experienced in old houses. We fired one HVAC company half way into the first visit ( I wouldn't have let him work on a new house either) and are very happy with the company we found to replace them. Our electrician has crawled through a tiny attic space to run wiring for mini can lights in the kitchen. He has been in worse, he says! Our plumber has crawled in an 18" crawl space under the kitchen, fished Pex up from the basement to the second floor, and fixed the subpar, not to code plumbing from the laundry room to the kitchen. As bad as all that sounds, read the comments here on Houzz by people who are building their dream homes! You will find worse problems. We did have a licensed chimney sweep get five of our fireplaces clean and operational, but we had budgeted that before we bought the house. If money had not been available, we would have gotten a quote and decided which one, if any, we wanted to fix. When your husband wants to price new windows, do the math. How much money will it cost vs. how much will the heating bills be if you don't. If the windows cost $28000, how many years of electric bills could you pay with $28000 if you don't do replacement windows? For the record, the problem with our plaster walls is they cut down noise between rooms (useful during March Madness) and keep the parlor cooler in the summer. Thank goodness for no open floor plan during this past year. We could have separation and privacy when we wanted. You are not on TV-this doesn't all have to be done in six weeks. Make lists and prioritize the most necessary.

Thank you so much, everyone!! You are all very helpful! So far, the window estimate to restore the windows is approx $800 per window, vs. approx $560 to replace with a similar, new vinyl-clad window. My husband is looking for "maintenance free," but it looks like actually, the original windows restored would last for a very long time without having to do anything else. We are in a really rural area and it's hard to get the specialty contractors from the cities. However, there are local independent contractors who are very familiar with old houses locally, since we have a lot of them here. The area's heyday has long past so most houses are older. Also, the restoration person said that with storm windows, the energy efficiency is near the replacement window plus the useful life is much longer. I am a little surprised, but pleased!

The window numbers are useful, but there are no details. “Restoring “ a window is a pretty vague term that gets tossed around here and the pricing is all in the details. The price seems on the higher end but maybe not. The replacement price is more towards the lower end regardless of details and might be a lower end window. The useful life depends on many variables.

A single pane window with a storm has a U value around 0.47 and a U value around 0.36 if you put a storm on with Low-E glass. A modern window will have will have a U-value between 0.25 and 0.30. Close or close enough? Then we could go in to the Solar heat gain .

Please, please no vinyl windows here. ❤️ I wish my 1973 rancher didn’t have them but we do.

I don't have a lot of details on the windows as it was just an email that I received from a recommended contractor I received from a state historical agency. At this stage, I'm just trying to gather ballpark figures to see if we can afford all that needs to be done. It is to include "complete restoration, which involves stripping all paint from the sash and jambs, removing and cleaning the glass, fixing any rot, reglazing, refinishing, and hanging." The frames may also need repair, but I'll know more once he visits. Honestly, I don't know that much about the vocabulary of all of this. I have much to learn!!

I wouldn’t start with the windows. Unless they are falling apart, it wouldn’t hurt to live in the house for a year and decide if you need them done at all. Get a notebook and start planning the things you must do for safety and the things you want to do for comfort. Get your ideas together, look at options, plant some flowers, throw a party. Live in the house, 5en you will see what to do.

My DD bought a 1930's home. All the storm window and screens were there, stored in the garage..

They had a lot of service people into the home for some updates. Their whole neighborhood is all very old homes and sell for $600,000 and up then people put a lot of $'s into them, but they are beautiful. A window guy was out and he said the storm windows were in great condition and needed just a bit of work, but to keep using them as they worked great with the house. They did end up replacing the upstairs windows, but kept the originals down stairs.

Old homes require their owners to be committed to being their guardian. If your hubby isn't into old houses and one or both of you doesn't have the basic woodworking, electrical and plumbing skills to do some of the work yourself, this is a bad idea. Let the house go to someone that will enjoy working on it and caring for it.