Blog No 1: 26.01.07 - Demolition

I'm starting this blog to detail our adventures in restoring our 1930's Lane House. It's my fist public blog, so I'm not sure how things will go...but I'm hoping for weekly updates on the process and experiences of Shanghai historic architecture restoration.

My husband and I recently acquired a 1930's lane house in a Shanghai lane with a colorful and turbulent history. The area is a few blocks south of Yu Garden (also near Wen Miao) and a few blocks from the future World Expo site. The whole area is undergoing massive reconstruction and transition, yet the Old atmosphere of the lane has changed very little.

Our goals for the renovation is to restore the home to its original condition, yet update it with modern conveniences. The house was originally designed with many Art Deco architectural features (rounded corners, horizontal lines) and we hope to bring this motif back wherever possible. We also want to use resources that were locally available at the time and were popular household construction materials. My husband and I feel a strong sense of responsibility to make this historic renovation as accurate as possible; however, lifestyles have changed a lot since the 1930’s so we hope to reach a midpoint between form and function.

We have hired a talented architect who specializes in Shanghai’s historic lane homes and old flats to guide us through the renovation. We are really excited to find an architect that shared our enthusiasm and vision for the project.

The renovation work has begun….and by work, I mean demolition. I went to visit the house three days ago and found it in shambles. I feel that watching a renovation is a bit like watching cranial surgery on a loved one. It broke my heart to see the floors dismantled and electrical wires hanging out from bare walls. I felt squeamish to see my beloved house in such a raw state…but after the initial shock, this turned to exhilaration to see months of planning and endless discussion beginning to take form.

Living Room Photo Before

Living Room Photo After

The downstairs living room has beautiful deep-grained antique dark wood floors that were a focal point of the downstairs. The concern was that water creeps through the sub-floor and will cause the wood to warp or rot. Since Shanghai is so humid and moist, this was too much of a gamble and we had to pull up the floors to investigate what was underneath the wood. In some old homes, there is dirt, straw, sand, and all other types of filling materials under the wood floors that can exasperate water damage. We just had no idea what was underneath the wood. Fortunately, our sub-floor was made of poured concrete since a previous owner had already (somewhat) sealed it in an earlier renovation. At this point, we will use a thick glue material to create a water sealant against the concrete leaking moisture. Most older Shanghai homes are designed with an open space below the floor to enable air-circulation we were disappointed that we won’t be able to have an open space under the floor since this will help with the evaporation of moisture, but hopefully with a sealant this won’t be a problem.

One of my ideas was to tear down a portion of the attic to open the ceiling of the master bedroom. The remaining portion of the attic will be a private little loft area ideal for a comfy chair and a good reading light. I had envisioned this design for months in my mind, and was such an incredible feeling to see it come to fruition the other day. We are planning to strip the dingy brown paint from the support beams to bring out the original wood.

This is one point we will be deviating from the plan to restore to original condition, but we felt the attic in the former state was a great waste of space. We suspect it was likely a storage/servant room and couldn’t be used for much else. Our feeling was that by opening it up to be a cathedral ceiling in the master bedroom it would allow more light and being an airy space that is popular for modern living. Of course it still has a long way to go, but here is a rough idea of how it will look-

Master Bedroom Before

Attic Above Master Bedroom Before

Attic Teardown

New Master Bedroom with Cathedral Ceiling

In the future I’ll write more about the history of the house as we uncover her secrets during renovation. I’ll also discuss life in the lane and the overall neighborhood as it undergoes construction and transformation as Modern Shanghai encroaches on the old way of life in the lanes.
Long story short, this blog is going to be ramblings and jostled thoughts about our upcoming adventures into the dark recesses of historic renovation. I'm not sure how I feel about publicly dumping my thoughts, but I worry that if I spend so much time polishing my writing for publication then I won't have time/energy to complete this blogging project. Just something to keep in mind before I get nit-picked by the bored tech-types. I welcome reader feedback since I'm hoping to someday turn this into a bigger project so please share your thoughts…

Curious about the lane? Click HERE for a site with photos from a photography club that spent an afternoon shooting in the Long Men Cun Lane…

More to follow soon~

melanie