Doorknobs and Bullshit

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Cookie wears many hats, one of which is Historic Architecture Preservationist - a field I have forty years of experience in - consultant, head of a statewide preservation organization, etc. and so on. 

During this COVID thing, I have tried to find different ways I can use my knowledge.  Someone suggested joining some of the old house groups on Facebook set up to help people with restoring their period houses. 

For the most part, a lot of people don't have any clue what restoration of a house is, but they love the word Restoration, which has to be the poppers of home remodeling - because it gives them a heart on.   

These are people who think the BS they see on HGTV's Hometown or stripping the plaster to expose the structural walls and chimney's in their houses is restoring something - it is not.  It's remodeling and decorating. 

• When you RESTORE a home, you are taking it back into a point of time when it would have looked a certain way.  Restoring your original wooden windows means that you save the sashes if they are in good repair, clean them, scrape them down, reglazing them, and then putting the whole thing back together. 
• Remodeling is when you don't restore anything, but get rid of the old and then bring in inferior replacements, as in throwing out the original windows and then replacing them with sad ass vinyl windows. Also known as "remuddling".

Get it? Got it? Good.

So I am a member of this group, cringing, at people who think they are doing wonderful things, trying to talk them into not vinyl cladding their homes - LOTS of posts seem to begin with "Looking for opinions, but if you disagree then please don't respond" and the like - when this woman who bought this fire trap in upstate New York chimes in with her latest hair-brained tip.  We'll call her Tonya. 

Tonya has posted all sorts of stupid stuff in the six weeks I have been in the group.  Like the time the roof was caving in but "I got distracted with polishing the light switch plates, and putting them back in the right places."  Or the time the porch caved in and she said "I knew it was unsafe, but I got distracted polishing the stair rail."

Anyway, yesterday, Tonya went a bit too far.

Tonya posted a picture of porcelain doorknobs, one with white knobs, the other with black knobs, and the other with the woodgraining.   These types of doorknobs were fashionable from the early 1800s on into the 1890s.  They were less expensive than true brass knobs, and they were usually fitted to surface latch and lock sets designed to screw into the inside face of a door (new example here).  These too were inexpensive, and they were a quick install - no mortice work on the door itself, just drill two holes through the door and match those holes to the holes in the metal latch and key set, and screw that in.  The latch catches on another plate screwed into the surface of the door frame.  In addition to being weak, they started falling out of favor when doors began to be mass-produced.

Tonya's narrative with the doorknobs went something like this:

"I just learned this and I thought I would share this interesting knowedge!  In Victorian times, white door knobs meant anyone in the household could enter that room in a house.  The black knobs were only on the doors that house servants could enter.  The wooden door knobs were on doors that only white people could use, blah, blah, blah..."

And then Cookie started reading the comments of the people who read this and actually agreed with it: 

• "I think I read that on the internets somewheres (sic)."
• "I know I heard that, but I forget who told me."
• "And those people were so clever.  You'd need that in a mansion."

Reader, let me tell you - Cookie just about had a stroke when he read that racist bullshit. 

So I called "Bullshit" with a capital "B".

I explained that in forty years in historic preservation, in preparing a National Register of Historic Places nomination, in college classes, in graduate school courses, I had never heard anything even remotely like this.  In book after book, nothing like this.  I also pointed out that solid color knobs, white and black were the least expensive, and that the wood tone ones would have been used in public rooms.  White could be used in any room, as could black, as well.  "You could walk into a house that was practical, and the doorknobs could be any color based on what the builder could afford."

I also pointed out that this was particularly insensitive given what the nation is currently undergoing.

And then something magical happened.  Tonya removed the whole post. 

Victory.

But today, she is back at it, asking if she should expose the brick in the kitchen like the house was when servants cooked meals in the fireplace. 

Sweet Smoking Jesus.

This idiot doesn't get that plaster walls were desirable in modern homes going back centuries. 

See.  This is what happens when we don't teach basic history.  You get people who think that the word old was spelled "olde".  Or you get people that olde time western movies were what the west was really about, pilgrim.

But I can only do so much.

My bet is that Tonya will leave the house when it's condemned.  And after seeing the pictures she posted today, I can't imagine it won't be long now until it is.