There is a strange idea that sometimes comes with owning an old house: that respecting its history means preserving everything exactly as it was. It doesn’t work that way, and treating it like it does usually does the house a disservice.
A home built in 1889 was designed for the way people lived in 1889. Kitchens were service spaces. Electrical needs were almost nonexistent by today’s standards. Families had different expectations around bathrooms, storage, lighting, heating and how rooms functioned. We live differently now, and much of my work renovating historic homes in Denver is about making these houses work for the way people live today.
The goal of a thoughtful historic renovation isn’t to recreate a particular moment in time. It is to understand what makes the house worth preserving, keep as much of that as possible, and make deliberate changes so the home works for the people who live there now. Sometimes that means restoring an original window. Other times it means moving the kitchen entirely.
Start With What the House Already Has
When I walk into an older home, I don’t begin with a list of things that must be preserved simply because they’re old.
It depends on the house, but there are things I will almost always try to keep.
Original built-ins are high on that list. So is original trim. Historic windows should be retained whenever possible. Fireplaces and their surrounds are often important architectural anchors in a room. Original flooring can usually be refinished rather than replaced.
These things aren’t decorative extras. Together, they establish the proportions, craftsmanship and architectural language of the house.
When original millwork is missing, new trim can be made to match what remains. When a built-in has seen better days, refinishing it may give it another hundred years. Old floors don’t need to look new to be beautiful.
What I don’t want is to remove something irreplaceable simply because replacing it is easier.
And please, no three-quarter-round added to the bottom of beautiful original baseboards. It’s a builder-basic shortcut when a simple shoe molding does the job without fighting the proportions of the original trim.
An old house deserves better than builder-basic shortcuts.
Preservation Doesn’t Mean Preserving Every Room’s Original Purpose
Among the more significant changes I’ve made to historic homes was relocating the kitchen in an 1889 Victorian.
The original kitchen was approximately 11 by 11 feet. That made sense when the house was built, when kitchens were utilitarian spaces deliberately separated from the rooms where guests were entertained.
It didn’t make sense for the person living there more than a century later, so we moved it. The former dining room became the kitchen, and the original kitchen became a flexible room with natural light and access to the yard.That’s a substantial change. But we weren’t trying to make the Victorian behave like a newly built house.
Original heartwood pine floors were refinished and retained. Original rosettes were restored and reused. New millwork was fabricated to match the existing profiles. An original window that had been bricked in was restored. Millwork from the original fireplace surround was carefully deconstructed and reused to create the new range hood, with the range occupying the location of the former firebox.
The room changed completely and the house didn’t lose itself in the process.
Preservation doesn’t require maintaining the original use of every room. Sometimes respecting a historic house means understanding its architecture well enough to know where you can make a significant change without losing what made the house special in the first place.
Not Everything Added Later Needs to Stay — or Go
Historic homes accumulate layers, and none of those layers are automatically right or wrong just because of when they were added. Someone remodeled the kitchen in 1952, replaced a door in 1978, added an archway in the 1990s because arches were having a moment. Some additions settle into a house so completely that removing them would do more damage than leaving them alone. Others fight the architecture from the day they’re installed.
In the 1889 Victorian where we relocated the kitchen, a 1990s renovation had introduced details that never matched the house’s original language and weren’t doing the room any favors functionally either. Removing those interventions let us recover the proportions of the original rooms before deciding what the house actually needed next. The question isn’t whether something is original — it’s whether it belongs.
Modernize the Things That Should Be Modern
Loving an old house doesn’t mean living with nineteenth-century functionality. Electrical systems should be modern. Plumbing and heating should work the way people expect now. Kitchens need real storage, more outlets than a house built in 1886 was ever wired for, and lighting that actually supports how someone cooks. Bathrooms need to accommodate real morning routines, not the ones a family had a century ago — and none of that requires stripping the house of its character.
Lighting shows how differently that plays out by client: I’ve worked with someone who wanted historic chandeliers built into the plan, and someone else who preferred fixtures with integrated LEDs so they’d never think about changing a bulb again. Both approaches can work in a historic home. My job is to understand what the client wants and needs, and find a way to make that work with the architecture rather than imposing my own preferred version of history.
Historic Doesn’t Have to Mean Stuffy — or Timeless
People sometimes confuse historic design with period reproduction, and separately, “timeless” gets used so often in interior design that it barely means anything anymore.
You don’t have to fill a Victorian with burgundy velvet, antique furniture, and wallpaper that looks like it came directly from 1893 — unless you want to. There are extraordinary wallpapers being produced today based on historic patterns, some of them custom-colored, and taking a pattern with roots in Victorian design and recoloring it for the person who actually lives in the house is far more interesting to me than recreating a period room. The architecture gives us a language to work with. It doesn’t dictate every word we’re allowed to say.
That’s also where the idea of “timeless” design falls apart. Good proportions endure. Beautiful millwork does. Craftsmanship and natural materials age well — a floor that’s survived a hundred years already has a fairly convincing track record. Colors and patterns don’t get that same pass. The avocado greens of the 1970s dated. The dusty mauves of the 1980s dated. Whatever’s popular now will date too, and there’s no version of paint or wallpaper that avoids it. A home doesn’t need to be stripped of personality to prevent anyone from knowing when it was decorated — I’d rather make deliberate choices that the people living there actually love. Paint changes. Wallpaper changes. Light fixtures change. Original millwork is what’s hard to undo, which is exactly why that’s where the real caution belongs.
Know Which Decisions Carry the Most Weight
Not every renovation decision deserves the same level of anxiety. Paint is low stakes. Moving a wall isn’t — relocating rooms, changing a floor plan, or building an addition can fundamentally change how a house works and feels, and those decisions deserve real deliberation. I’m not opposed to any of that; I’ve moved an entire kitchen from one room to another. But there needs to be a reason beyond what’s trending. Open concept is a good example: older homes weren’t designed as one enormous room, and removing walls just to chase that layout can destroy the proportions and sequence that made the house work. More often, the better solution is improving the relationship between the rooms that already exist — widening an opening, improving circulation, borrowing light, reconsidering which room should serve which purpose. The house can change without being erased.
A Successful Historic Renovation Should Feel Like It Was Always There
This is ultimately what I’m looking for when a project is finished: I don’t want the renovation to feel pasted onto the house, and I don’t necessarily need someone walking into a completed room to immediately know which pieces are original and which were added. I want it to belong. The architecture should still make sense, the transitions should feel natural, and new millwork should understand the old millwork so the rooms continue to relate to one another the way they always did.
But the house also needs to work for the people living in it. The kitchen needs to function. There needs to be enough storage, lighting that actually works, and a bathroom that accommodates the people using it. The electrical system needs to support a life that includes considerably more than a table lamp and a radio. And more than anything, the people who live there should walk through the door and exhale. They’re home. That’s what we’re preserving.
Don’t Be Afraid to Change an Old House
If you love your old home but you’re afraid renovating it will ruin it, you don’t need to be afraid of change. You need to be deliberate about it. Understand what you’re removing before you remove it. Know which details are difficult or impossible to replace. Pay attention to the proportions and relationships that already work. Make the significant decisions carefully, and let the house evolve where it needs to.
Historic homes have already been changing for generations, and a thoughtful renovation is simply the next chapter.
If you own a historic home in Denver and you’re trying to figure out what should stay, what can change, and how to make the house work better for the way you live now, that’s the work we do at Studio Olio. We believe you can have the functionality you need without erasing the details that made you fall in love with an old house in the first place. If you’re planning a renovation and want someone who understands both sides of that equation, we’d love to hear about your home.
Frequently Asked Questions About Historic Home Renovation
How do you renovate a historic home without losing its character?
Start by understanding what gives the house its character before deciding what needs to change. Original millwork, built-ins, windows, fireplaces, flooring, room proportions and the relationships between spaces all contribute to how an old house feels. A thoughtful renovation preserves the elements that matter while updating the layout, systems and functionality for the people living there now.
What original features should you keep when renovating a historic home?
It depends on the house, but I generally try to retain original built-ins, trim and millwork, historic windows, fireplaces and their surrounds, and original flooring whenever possible. Refinishing or repairing these elements is often preferable to replacing them, particularly when the craftsmanship or materials would be difficult to reproduce today.
Can you change the floor plan of a historic home?
Absolutely. Preserving a historic home doesn’t mean every room has to serve the same purpose it did when the house was built. I’ve relocated an entire kitchen in an 1889 Victorian because the original layout no longer worked for modern life. The important question is whether the change improves the way the house functions without erasing the architectural relationships that make it feel like itself.
Should you modernize the electrical and plumbing in a historic home?
Yes. Preserving historic character doesn’t require preserving outdated mechanical systems. Electrical, plumbing and heating should support the way we live today, and those systems can usually be modernized while retaining the architectural details that give an older home its character.
Can a historic home have modern finishes, lighting and wallpaper?
Of course. Historic design doesn’t have to be period reproduction. Contemporary lighting, modern functionality, color and pattern can all live comfortably in an older home when they’re selected with the architecture in mind. Even historically inspired wallpaper can be custom-colored to reflect the client’s personality rather than recreating a room from another century.
How do I find a designer for a historic home renovation in Denver?
Look for a designer who sees the existing house as part of the design rather than something that needs to be cleared away before the new work begins. They should be able to identify what is worth preserving, understand how new architectural details will relate to the original ones, and help you decide where meaningful changes will improve the way you live in the house. At Studio Olio, that’s at the center of our historic home renovation work in Denver: preserving what makes an old house special while making sure it works beautifully for the people living there now.
Studio Olio specializes in historic home renovation in Denver and remotely. If you’re planning a kitchen renovation and want to understand what’s possible — let’s talk.
