Suburban homeowners hone restoration skills into a career path

Anyone who has ever restored a vintage home knows it's a labor of love. Sometimes that labor is frustrating, particularly when essential pieces are missing, rotted, painted over or otherwise obscured. Sometimes that labor turns into life work, often in more ways than one.

Restoring a home to its former glory, no matter what the style, is also an expensive proposition, no matter what the original architectural style of the building. Some homeowners are lucky enough to have funds to have others do most of the work for them, but more often than not, they become do-it-yourselfers, at least in part. They sometimes get so good at what they do that they become craftspeople, and launch businesses to help others restore their homes.

Such is the case with Elgin residents Dan Miller and Susan Giugliano. Both, along with their spouses, have painstakingly restored their 100-plus-year-old houses, and found niche specialties along the way. Miller's involves millwork while Giugliano has become an expert in Victorian era decorative arts, producing faux finishes, gilding, and similar techniques.

If anything, those who restore homes are sticklers for detail and authenticity. Finding a craftsman or a business that do the required work is a necessity.

"Once you get into the restoration mindset, you're doing custom work," said Ron Cowgill, owner of Restore the North Shore in Glenview, whose company often performs historic restorations.

Millwork is particularly needed as wood has a tendency to rot from neglect as well as age. Matching millwork isn't exclusive to any particular style. Cowgill has seen restorations that run the gamut of styles, noting that Arts and Crafts houses are easier to match. At the other end of the spectrum is the variety of housing styles built during the Victorian era.

"The old-timers didn't standardize so I very seldom get to use the same knife twice," said Miller, explaining how he manufactures his own cutting tools to achieve the right design.

Miller's workshop, located on the second floor of his property's carriage house, is a forest of wooden artifacts and mock-ups. Samples of spindles, finials, intact window hoods, unfinished and obviously new posts and latticework fill the walls, floors, and counters among the various machines he uses for his work. The vintage pieces are a necessary part of his business.

"I'm not a designer, I just duplicate," he said.

Like many people who own a vintage home, Miller knows all about the different styles of the era. When a client comes to him for a project, he first studies the design of the house and any remaining wood that was part of the structure. Then, via careful measurement and cutting, he creates reproductions.

While Miller considers himself more of a craftsman, Giugliano is more of an artist. Most days will find her with a paintbrush in hand or custom mixing colors for crown moldings or stenciling.

"I've always been artsy," said Giugliano, who like Miller, is self-taught.

In addition to creating all the window treatments for the Gothic Revival style house she shares with her husband, Michael, Giugliano turned plain white woodwork into works of art. The crown moldings in several rooms of the 3,000-square-foot home are bright with color and gilded accents, including the dining room, which also features gilded wainscoting. Giugliano achieved that effect by making a dimensional stencil onto which she applied lace and sprayed 24-karat gold paint.

As a result of the comments she received from people who went through her home during the 2007 Elgin House Walk, Giugliano began her own business, the Gilded Lily, specializing in period stenciling, custom gilding and faux finishes.

"Not everyone wants Victorian," she noted. "You have to personalize it to the way they want."

One of the inherent problems with restoring an old home is that there is a lot of guesswork involved. Prior owners rip out or cover up old features and unless there are old photos available it's difficult if not impossible to know exactly how the home looked.

Such was the situation encountered by Carl and Nicole Brahms of Elgin. After restoring much of their home's interior, it was time to take care of the porches. Miller replaced several rotting pieces on a small Italianate porch on the left side of the house, but the one at the front was a problem as it obviously was not in original style.

By studying numerous old plan books, looking at hundreds of photos and driving the neighborhoods for inspiration, they came up with a design and received approval from the city of Elgin. Shortly thereafter, Nicole asked a relative of a former owner whether there were any old photos of the house, and miraculously there was one that showed the original front porch. Previous plans were scrapped and Miller completed a mock-up of the design.

"We had stars in our eyes, that mock-up was so good," Nicole said.

Even then, however, everything didn't run smoothly. Carl Brahms had mismeasured some of the posts that were to be part of the porch and they had already been ordered and delivered from a company in Canada. Miller had to alter his design slightly to make the posts usable.

"It's not exact, but it's true to the original," Nicole said.

Because of the conjecture involved in so many of these projects, being true to the original design and intent is what's important. Miller has found that even with his own home. The rebuilt porch on his own home was inspired by two separate Italianate houses. The designs for the posts came from a house in Janesville, Wis., while the ceiling was copied from the design of a home in Milwaukee.

Giugliano has also wondered how true her work has been.

"I had always thought that maybe I was making my house too fancy until one day I was stripping wood in this (computer) room and found gilding underneath," she said.

What both are trying to achieve is a good fit with the period of whatever house they are working on. Giugliano's pride and joy is the upstairs master bathroom, which has an extensively stenciled ceiling as well as a new decorative molding that features painted faces with eyes of blue Swarovski crystals. Such moldings may not have existed in the late 1800s, but they fit with the intent of the room.

Making an appropriate fit is also key to the success of Miller's work, which is the primary purpose of the full scale mock-ups he manufactures. When made, Miller takes them to clients and asks them to assess them for several weeks.

"Does it grow on you, are the proportions right?" Miller said. "These are some of the questions I tell them to ask themselves."

Sometimes modifications have to be made. A porch spindle may seem too thick or maybe overall proportions don't feel right. When that occurs, Miller changes the sample until the client is satisfied.

Unlike Giuliano's work, Miller hands off what he makes to a contractor who installs the pieces. Having a contractor come to an artisan for such work is a common practice. Cowgill notes that his company has moldings and similar pieces made while his own employees cut doors and window sashes.

Working with an independent artisan has its advantages, however, as larger companies often won't work on a small project, or if they will, the cost becomes prohibitive to many homeowners. Thus, Miller specializes in two niche areas - making knives for moldings and wood turning to make spindles.

"This is extremely valuable to the homeowner because you can't buy these things," Miller said. "This is satisfying to me to make these things because people want to do this right, but in the past, many couldn't because it wasn't economical."

Thus, if only one item needs to be replaced, it can be done - like the finial on the Giugliano's front staircase. Miller made an exact replica of the original that was broken, but with one difference. This one comes off just like the one in the movie "It's a Wonderful Life", but not by accident, by design to make it easier to move furniture and large items up the stairs.

Independent, in this sense, does not connote small and unable to do. In fact, it's virtually the opposite. Giugliano mixes her own paints because she often cannot find the proper color with commercially available products.

"I keep very good notes on what works," she said.

It's just like restoration. When it's right, you know it.