This episode is a conversation with David Rademacher, an expert on restoring kitchens and baths in old houses. Read on for tips for finding antique fixtures, remodeling and renovating old kitchens and bathrooms, and making a newer renovation fit in with a historic house’s aesthetic.

Katharine MacPhail  00:00

So, the kind of work you do – kitchens and bathrooms and old houses – this is a subject that I would love to talk about. Because there’s so many wrong ways to do it, and I guess a few right ways to do it. I love old houses. That’s just my reason for being is these old houses, and I can’t explain that.

Dave Rademacher  00:19

Yeah, agreed. So, the Rademacher Revival Instagram account, and the consulting and things like that is something I do on the side. I have a day job and building materials sales, so it’s kind of more of a passion project than anything else. But diving into old houses was my career up until what I’m doing right now. I did remodeling and restoration on old houses – this house we’re currently working on, which is a late 1800s farmhouse, is my fourth old house. All the houses I’ve owned, since I’ve owned houses, have been over 100 years old. So it’s just something I gravitate towards with the history of the houses. Which enters into documenting things on Instagram, and gaining a following there and kind of showing people how you do things. Because I show everything that I’m doing with my own two hands, there’s a lot of old house owners who are following along and saying, “Okay, well I can glean something” from my stories or my posts. And that’s kind of been where my passion has gravitated towards, because I do have such a passion for old houses I want to enable people to work on their own old houses. I don’t want there to be a barrier, you know. It’s a scary thing to own an old house. People feel like there’s a lot of maintenance, which there is, and it can be scary if you don’t grow up in it but you desire to do it. And that’s kind of where I developed a side gig consulting thing. Because there’s only so much I can show, you know. You’re basically limited to what I’m showing at the time, it doesn’t necessarily speak to your specific situation. And I’m sure people can YouTube videos, there’s plenty of information out there, but it’s hard to pick through what’s good information and what’s not. And it’s hard to find something that’s going to apply to your specific situation in an old house. So a lot of the things I get contacted for revolve around kitchens and bathrooms in old houses, because those are the most frequently changed things in an old house. You’re rarely going to go into a house that’s 100, 150 years old and find, you know, an original bathroom or original kitchen, because those things change with the times so much. And speaking to bathrooms in particular, you’re not going to go into a 250 year old house and find the original bathroom because the original bathroom would have been outside.

Katharine MacPhail  02:46

Right, exactly. You might still have the original one outside. Probably not. So I guess that’s the challenge. How do you integrate more modern facilities with the essence of an older house? 

Dave Rademacher  03:01

That’s what people struggle with the most. And I think it’s more so people don’t really know what options are available to them, or have had anybody present an alternative to what’s popular right now. And all that stuff kind of comes and goes with fashion. The barn doors are popular right now, the Moroccan mosaic tiles are popular right now, there’s a lot of things that are going to come and go. But I like to approach it from an aspect of what’s going to age well with the house and what honors the history of the house. For example, we’re in the late 1800s farmhouse, it had an outhouse when it was built. So then I’m thinking through, when a bathroom was introduced into this house what would have looked like? There’s some liberties that you can take there, but I also want it to age well with the house, I want it to look like it’s kind of been there for a long time. And since my favorite aesthetic is Art Deco, that’s kind of what we gravitate towards, kind of an Art Deco look. And when we’re done, it’ll more or less look like it was put in the 20s, which is appropriate for the house and it looks cool. So I’m not of the mindset that you have to go completely historically correct and put in an outhouse, because it’s just not realistic.

Katharine MacPhail  04:24

You can’t even, can you? I don’t know if you’d be allowed to just put in an outhouse.

Dave Rademacher  04:28

That is a good question. No, I think you’re right. It has to have running water to be habitable, and that sort of thing. And then the other thing that I’m pretty heavy on in my own projects is the materials that you’re putting into them. Because you’re looking for…most people are going to remodel with new products, and I’m pretty heavy on using salvage products, whether that’s a toilet, a bathtub, or a sink. I always do vintage light fixtures. I don’t think people understand the resources that are available out there to put those products back in. And I think the biggest barrier to that is there’s not a lot of contractors out there that want to deal with that.

Katharine MacPhail  05:12

By that, do you mean like retrofitting vintage fixtures to bring them up to code?

Dave Rademacher  05:17

Yep. It’s harder to source the parts, it’s more work to get them to fit. So it’s more of a pain from the builders aspect, who wants to just get everything new, it’s gonna fit when he puts it in, there’s not a lot of extra work that has to go into making these fixtures work. I’ve even consulted for some builders and designers and remodelers, to be that liaison between the homeowner and the builder saying, okay, I’m going to help you source these fixtures, I’m going to help you design a layout that makes sense for the period of the house. We’re going to incorporate these vintage fixtures into the house, and that’s what’s gonna help it make it look like it’s always been there. The interesting thing is that you can get these vintage fixtures for a fraction of what something new is gonna cost. Sure, it’s a little more work to retrofit it, but you’re still going to be on the winning end of the finance side of that. For example, I just bought sconces for our bathroom that we’re currently mid renovation on. These are 1920s Art Deco sconces. I had to source them from a few different places to find enough, but it ended up working out to maybe $25, $30 a fixture. To find a sconce that you’re going to put in your bathroom and do something quality, it’s easily going to be $300. So I don’t think people really think about those options. It’s nice, new, shiny. But I think paying attention to those details is what’s going to make it look like it fits the home.

Katharine MacPhail  06:50

So who does the retrofitting on those?

Dave Rademacher  06:52

You mean, making the fixtures work? It depends. That’s another conversation that comes up when I’m doing consulting work, because I’m working with a different set of homeowners every time that have different skill sets. There’s certain things that depending on your skill set you may want to DIY, you may want to hire a professional for. So it just depends. And there’s some things that people think they should DIY, which they definitely should not under any circumstances. So yeah, with it with an electrical fixture you’re probably going to want to rely on an electrical shop that’s going to rewire that for you. Plumbing is different, because you’re typically just sourcing the parts that are going to work with it. There’s a number of resources out there that make different plumbing fixtures that are going to work in an antique fixture. So that’s more sort of sourcing than actually retrofitting. But there’s weird measurements, you typically have to have the pieces, and your contractor or yourself, you’re gonna figure it out by putting them in the space more so than coming up with a design and ordering things. And it’s all just going to come together when everything comes in.

Katharine MacPhail  08:00

So I saw your Instagram about cutting around the toilet bowl, because it was in the way of the door. That was very funny. But you know, I actually do have projects where occasionally there’s a little notch in the door so we can get by the – not the ones I’ve designed, but I mean, when I go in to help them. People do actually cut the notches out of doors.

Dave Rademacher  08:23

Well, it was interesting, because that was obviously entirely a joke. But I had a number of people reach out with their own stories and/or photos of a similar situation in an apartment that they’re living in, or a house that they’ve owned, where creative solutions have been added. So we’re talking about, because this is obviously just over audio, the door’as currently an inswing door and it would impede with the toilet if we kept it in its original swing. So we’re just reversing it to an outswing door. That way, you don’t have to compete with any of the fixtures inside. It’s a simple solution that apparently doesn’t come to mind for a lot of people. “Let’s just notch out the door instead”, that makes sense.

Katharine MacPhail  09:12

Well it does kind of have a beauty of its own. So where do you get these antique fixtures? Would you just Google antique fixtures? Or do you get them at the architectural salvage places nearby?

Dave Rademacher  09:24

Yeah, great question. It’s a couple different sources for me personally. You know, most states I found have some sort of architectural salvage supply warehouse in one of their major cities. For us, Lansing is the closest town but it does not have one. Grand Rapids has a few. Detroit has a few. There’s one in Grass Lake, there’s a nice one in Kalamazoo. So that’s where you’re going to find a decent collection of things. But for me, most of my stuff is found…because I know what projects are coming up, I collect in advance and I end up with an inventory of a bunch of old stuff. It’s a lot of Facebook marketplace, Craigslist. You’d be surprised at the stuff I find on the side of the road driving through old towns, when people are doing renovations, because people don’t really see the value in them. They don’t think people want them, they’re gonna end up in landfills. An old toilet is the hardest thing to source. People don’t understand that there’s people out there who want those, they pretty much always go into the dumpster. But I’m like, no, I want the toilet to look like it’s also incorporated into this bathroom, as well as the tub, as well as the sink. I don’t want a brand new toilet in a bathroom that I’m trying to make look a certain age.

Katharine MacPhail  10:43

So how do you deal with the current 1.6 gallon flush with the old toilet? That was like a 50 gallon flush.

Dave Rademacher  10:51

I ignore it.

Katharine MacPhail  10:53

There’s no way you can retrofit that, right?

Dave Rademacher  10:55

There is, there’s some inserts that you can put inside of older tanks.

Katharine MacPhail  11:02

Oh okay, just to fill out the room.

Dave Rademacher  11:04

To retrofit them. I think for us being in the Midwest and being on a well, it’s not as much of an issue as it is for states that are a little heavier as far as the water regulation is concerned.

Katharine MacPhail  11:19

Yeah, it varies from state to state I guess. So then where do you end up finding these toilets? Facebook marketplace, or…?

Dave Rademacher  11:27

Yeah, the one that I’m incorporating, it’s a wall mount tank. And I found that one, I think on Facebook marketplace. I had to drive about an hour to pick it up. But it was intact, no cracks, had the original toilet seat still on it, and it had all the plumbing parts, which if they don’t have them they get kind of expensive to find replacements for. But then salvage yards have them too, especially in the bigger cities, they’re just not as prevalent as tubs or sinks. It’s just one of those things that people think “ew gross” and you know, it goes in landfill.

Katharine MacPhail  12:04

Yeah, people do think, “Oh gross, a used toilet”, but maybe they should go ahead and donate it. There are lots of places where they could donate these old fixtures if they decide they don’t want them.

Dave Rademacher  12:14

I think a lot of it’s an education piece too. At my day job, I interact with hundreds of contractors around the state of Michigan. I’m constantly putting bugs in people’s ears like, hey, you do a remodel on something that’s pre 1940 and you’re getting rid of the fixtures hit me up, I’ll take them off your hands, I’ll find a home for them. So it’s an education piece, I think, for contractors that there is value in some of these things.

Katharine MacPhail  12:44

How do you deal with kitchens? Bathrooms I can totally get, just going with the certain aesthetic and then finding I guess tiles, shower curtains…what did they do about shower curtains back in the 20s?

Dave Rademacher  12:58

So a lot of the tub showers were the freestanding clawfoot tub type. They’d have a circular oval ring with a shower curtain that sticks to you when you take a shower.

Katharine MacPhail  13:11

Yeah, they’re great. A lot of these things, I think, there’s a reason why this other thing was invented to take the place of the old thing.

Dave Rademacher  13:19

Yep, it makes sense. So as far as kitchens, that’s another thing where your kitchen of the 1920s, or the late 1800s looks way different than the kitchen of the 2000s. So what does that look like? And, again, what we’re going to do in our farmhouse is we’re probably going to go back to a 1910s ish farmhouse, you know, built in cabinet. Finished carpentry was my main trade back when I was doing a lot of hands on stuff, so I can build all my own cabinets. And they’ll look like they’ve always been there in a farmhouse, 1920s ish, 1910s built in cabinet style. Our goal is to find a cast iron farmhouse sink with legs on it, that we’ll kind of build the kitchen around, so that’ll look like it’s always been there and kind of be the focal point of it. But then you get to things obviously, like stoves, and refrigerators and dishwashers and the modern conveniences that we don’t want to really live without. And so there’s a few different ways that you can go with that. There’s companies that make retro looking refrigerators, or refrigerators that look like ice boxes but they’re modern. You can hide dishwashers behind panels, they make vintage looking stoves, or you can go more antique and pick up an antique stove. Is it more work? Yeah, I mean, I’m more of a form over function type of guy where I’ll live in something or work with something that’s a little more annoying just for the aesthetic. So I don’t harp on people if they want to put stainless steel appliances in their old house. I mean, the things that I try to educate and harp on are the bones of the house, the structure. Let’s not make a house open concept that wasn’t intended to be, let’s not take out the original lighting fixtures, let’s not paint the woodwork, let’s not cover up the floors. The bones of the house, the details, once they’re gone they’re gone. That’s the thing that I’ll stand on my soapbox about. But things that are easy to change, cosmetic things, the appliances that you put in, even lighting fixtures. The mid century modern trend is pretty popular right now. I follow a couple accounts who just lean into the midcentury in a turn of the century house and it looks cool. But the fabric of the house is still there, you can change out a light fixture in a matter of an hour, it’s not a big deal. So people can put their own flair on these old houses without destroying their historic fabric. So what do you say to the people who want to open up their kitchen to the dining room in an old house? Because they all want to.  No, yeah, I’ll say no.

Katharine MacPhail  16:29

That’s the short version. No, don’t do that.

Dave Rademacher  16:34

Again, it’s my tendency towards the form over function where I like the feeling of a cramped kitchen. That’s where, in any old house that I’ve owned, when we entertain that’s where everybody ends up. You’re kind of forced into this intimacy, and it’s fun. I enjoy the separate rooms and having a different vibe in each room. I don’t know, it’s just a different lifestyle. You’re living in the house and conforming to the house’s aesthetic rather than vice versa.

Katharine MacPhail  17:09

Right, right. What do you think of…I’m not exactly sure what this means, but people talk to me a lot about our modern lifestyle, and adapting these houses to our modern lifestyle. So I don’t know 100% what that means. And sometimes I say, what does it actually mean? Because I’m not sure…I don’t know what it means, actually. What about our modern lifestyle is it that makes us want to be able to see the entire downstairs of a house in one shot?

Dave Rademacher  17:38

You got me, I don’t know either. I like the vibe of the old house. I mean, I understand the open concept and the flow. But every house we’ve lived in, we kind of function our life a little bit differently around it. And it’s kind of unique in its own way. Again, it’s the history of the house and being a part of it rather than the other way around. So yeah, if you want an open concept house, I’d say buy an open concept house. Again, once it’s gone, it’s gone. You’re destroying those details and it’s hard to bring those back after they’re gone.

Katharine MacPhail  18:17

Well, that’s for sure. A lot of times people want to paint the trim, they really feel like it’s dark. And that just makes me sad. Because once you paint it, it’s over. It’s never going back.

Dave Rademacher  18:29

Can it be done? Yes. Do people do it? Not very often, just because it’s a pretty daunting task. In our current house, all of the trim has been painted, with the exception of what we’ll call the parlor. It had been painted, but the previous owners had stripped it, and it’s beautiful, beautiful woodwork. But I probably won’t strip the rest of the woodwork, just because it’s such a daunting task and I’ve got bigger fish to fry in the house.

Katharine MacPhail  18:58

It is a lot of work, especially if there’s any detail in any of the woodwork, which there often was back in the old days.

Dave Rademacher  19:05

Yep. In an old farmhouse like ours, typically the upstairs would have been painted woodwork. It was very utilitarian, just used for sleeping, so they didn’t put a lot of money into the upper floors of the house. So upstairs, that makes sense. It’s typically a lesser grade woodwork, not a fancy profile and is very utilitarian. Our farmhouse was…we haven’t been able to find out exactly the details on who built it and what their status was, but the first floor is very fancy for being a farmhouse. Has very wide, very intricate trim work on the first floor, which is one of the things that attracted us to the house.

Katharine MacPhail  19:49

Hmm. So you have a service that you offer, which is I could take you on my phone while I’m looking at an old house to buy and you can check it out with me virtually, or not virtually but on the phone, and let me know if it’s going to suit my needs. I mean, I’m kind of intrigued by that idea, because how great is that? Now that we have these video phones of the future, you don’t even need to live near me to help me.

Dave Rademacher  20:17

Yeah, a lot of those discussions have revolved around people who don’t come from the industry. Can somebody get an inspector to come and look at the house? Yes, and that is advisable. But depending on your budget and what you want to DIY, it’s important to find the right old house that’s going to work for you. There’s your major things, the big ticket items, like a foundation – are the bones of the house good? Because if you get into something that is crumbling, a wall sagging, it’s an old brick house and the foundations shifting, that’s a big ticket item that’s gonna blow your whole budget, and you’re not gonna be able to afford the things that you want to do to the house. So that’s the main thing that we’re going to look at before diving into an old house. A lot of the discussion revolves around what do you want to hire out versus what are you capable of doing yourself. The biggest thing that I advocate for is not worrying about doing everything to the house all at once. People perceive a barrier to entry in these old houses, because they may be less expensive on the front end, but they’re thinking through “what is it going to cost me to make this house how it needs to be?”, it’s just overwhelming. And like, “I don’t have the funds for that”. Well, most people don’t. But also, a lot of these old houses are habitable, you just have to be okay living with, in our case, a kitchen that’s from the 70s. Sure it’s ugly and kind of worn, but it’s operable. We can live in that and tackle that when we get to it. So, in our case, we renovated the bedroom quarters before moving into the house, because we wanted a nice and clean space that’s already done so we don’t have to live in a bedroom that’s being renovated. And we’re tackling the first floor as we live there room by room. So it’s not something that you have to think about doing all at once and sinking a ton of money into it. If your mechanicals and the structure of the house are fine, you’re water tight. That’s the main thing. The other benefit to doing it over time is it’s different looking at a space on a sheet of paper or a picture and thinking “this is what I want to do to it”. It’s different. If you’re living in the space for a year, and thinking through the feeling of it, what do you want to do – when I shower in the morning, that’s when inspiration strikes. I’m like, hey I could do this, this would be really cool. Maybe I sourced a fixture a year ago, or you know, there’s things that open up so many possibilities living in the area before you renovate it. I can look at something and design it in my head, I don’t have to draw it out, I’m very visual that way. Most people are not. So that’s the benefit, you have the ability to change your mind and make decisions over time and slowly acquire things, and slowly acquire the funds to do those things. You don’t need to buy something that’s already done, or buy something and then do it all all at once. Let’s take our time.

Katharine MacPhail  23:26

Right. So you’d help people with a master plan maybe, around how to get their house up to speed. What they want.

Dave Rademacher  23:33

It varies. Most of my consultation stuff is usually just like an hour or two long. It sets people down the right path. They want to just be reassured because they are, a lot of times, first time homeowners and they want to get into an old house but they don’t know what to look for. Like, is this floor being bouncy because the floor is gonna fall in? Or is it just because back then the beams were undersized and the span’s a little bit longer than it should be but it’s not going anywhere? Or maybe, typically the case, a plumber came through and hacked the crap out of some joists and so now our wall’s sagging. It’s not that big of a deal to reinforce that area. People don’t know what’s the big deal and what’s not. 

Katharine MacPhail  24:16

That’s true they don’t, they don’t know.

Dave Rademacher  24:17

People also don’t understand, or can identify, what’s an original characteristic of the house and what’s not. What was added, and what wasn’t. Because I have the experience that I do working on old houses over the course of my career it’s pretty easy to identify, okay, this is a new addition, this is original, what’s the cool factor, what was always here, looking at those things and seeing value in those things. I think it’s difficult for somebody without an untrained eye to see, so typically my consults are reassuring people or saying run for the hills, setting them down the right path and then they kind of take it from there. But you know, there’s been instances where they say, “Yes, I like this, help. I have a contractor in mind, but I don’t feel comfortable that he’s going to have the eye for the old details, what it should look like, like you do. So can you help him or her design the space and construct this space?” So I’ll sometimes walk with clients down the path of their restoration, making sure the builder’s doing justice to the space. To somebody who hasn’t worked with a contractor before, you know, holding them accountable to doing good work. Because people don’t know.

Katharine MacPhail  25:37

Yeah, that’s true. People do think things are a bigger deal than they really are. Sometimes they are, like the foundation and the sagging masonry walls and that sort of thing, but sometimes just working with wood structure is really not that hard, you know, to fix things.

Dave Rademacher  25:51

Yep. Typically I’ve found the issues that people bring up are consistent with the age of the house, and not really anything that is a big deal. I mean, you have plaster walls, they’re probably going to be cracked, there’s a fix for that. You have original windows that are a little leaky, there’s a fix for that. Let’s figure it out. It’s an education piece.

Katharine MacPhail  26:09

Let’s fix the windows and not throw them away and replace them with final windows, please.

Dave Rademacher  26:17

Correct. That’s the number one thing. It’s rare to see a house with original windows, which is sad. I don’t think people set out to ruin the fabric of the house. It’s just, again, it’s an education piece. People don’t understand the value in the windows and that they can be made more energy efficient than they are, the cost factor to new windows versus what you’re going to spend over time and energy consumption. So yeah, there’s a lot of variables there, and just a conversation.

Katharine MacPhail  26:49

Right. So what’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever found in the walls of a project you’ve been working on? 

Dave Rademacher  26:55

Oh, weirdest thing…

Katharine MacPhail  26:57

I’m trying to get people to leave a message on this tab on my website about it, but nobody ever calls so I’m just gonna ask from now on.

Dave Rademacher  27:07

I don’t think I’ve found anything too…it’s always unfortunately dead things like squirrels, and rats, and birds, and raccoons. In our case, our property was vacant for about two years before we purchased it. So there was a family of raccoons living upstairs, countless squirrels, and just mice galore. So it’s nothing too crazy. More just walls filled full of mouse.

Katharine MacPhail  27:39

Mouse carcasses. Okay, so how can people see more about your work or get in touch with you? I know you’re on Instagram and TikTok.

Dave Rademacher  27:46

Correct. Instagram and TikTok at Rademacher Revival. We have a website that is Rademacher Revival dot com – if people want to talk more about consulting, that’s where you’d contact me for that information. A little bit more about us. All of our media pieces that we’ve done, that people really are interested about, are on the website as well. On Instagram, if you have billions of hours on your hands, we’ve documented basically daily renovations since we bought this property about a year ago. All of my highlights are every single story that I’ve done since we’ve purchased the property. I need to eventually go through and organize them a little bit better in terms of refinishing floors, doing plaster work and that sort of thing. But right now, it’s all in chronological order. If people are interested in that they can go look through stories. I don’t want to open the floodgates, but I love helping the old house community. So, you know, little things here and there. I’ll help people out, if it’s an easy type of question.

Katharine MacPhail  28:50

No, it’s great. Do you have any final tips or thoughts that you want to share with my huge listenership?

Dave Rademacher  29:00

I think the biggest thing is we’re advocating for old homes and seeing the value in old homes. I want people to see that and understand that it’s not something to be afraid of, it’s something that has value. I think we’re getting there with the Cheap Old Houses Instagram account launching their HGTV program. It’s heading in the direction of these older homes have value, preservation has value. 

Katharine MacPhail  29:30

Yeah, I think that’s great.

Dave Rademacher  29:31

It’s an education piece, and as that grows, I think people will get into it more. You know, we’re trying to make old stuff cool, you know?

Katharine MacPhail  29:41

Old stuff always has been cool, but you’re just trying to get people to realize that old stuff is cool.

Dave Rademacher  29:47

Yeah, if we can make if we can make what I do to old houses a fad, let’s go.

Katharine MacPhail  29:54

Yeah let’s go, that would be fun.

Dave Rademacher  29:56

We’ll make it cool to have separated rooms instead of open concept, we’ll make it cool to have vintage fixtures…it’s trending that direction. I think that the more education we can put out there about the value in these old houses and preserving the history in the details, the better off our community will be.

Katharine MacPhail  30:17

What about a wall hung rotary phone with a long curly cord? I mean that’s probably from like the 70s, but that’s kind of retro and fun.

Dave Rademacher  30:26

Yep. And to that point, if you’ve been following our Instagram account – in what we’re using as our main bedroom, underneath the carpet, we found a linoleum pattern from the 40s that was tattered and torn up and just in awful condition. But it was so cool looking, a very brightly colored floral pattern. Of course that’s not original to the house, but instead of tearing it out and refinishing the floors, we decided to restore it as much as possible and then preserve it because it tells the story of the house. It’s part of a renovation that was done to the house and it looks cool. So a rotary phone that was in the 70s, is it original to the house? No, but it’s part of the story of the house. And so we can have an old house, and have it show its age through the centuries of the people that lived there. What we’re doing to the house is also going to tell the story of the house. And hopefully somebody will look at that and say, okay, that’s cool. We’re going to incorporate that into the house. So you don’t have to live in a museum. You can do justice to the house, but still have different things throughout the ages that are cool.

Katharine MacPhail  31:40

Yeah. I mean, there are so many things that are really evocative of a different time. I just think about someone spending hours and hours sitting on the stairs like 15 feet away from the phone. Talking on the phone, like maybe doodling on the wall or whatever. 

Dave Rademacher  31:59

Absolutely. Yep. That’s the fun part. 

Katharine MacPhail  32:02

Yeah. Thank you so much, Dave, for joining me and telling me your story and the story of your house. I just love following along. So thanks. 

Dave Rademacher  32:11

Absolutely. My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

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