OldHomeRenovation – Whoopsie Piggle

There are few American cities with the cultural and educational amenities combined with a relatively low-cost of living as is found in Akron, where I am fortunate enough to own two homes. In 2003, I bought a 1909 Arts and Crafts home, which I call Dreisbach House, for $112,500. After a divorce in 2010, I refinanced the balance of the mortgage on a 15-year note and paid it off early by rounding up each payment.

The Great Recession depressed housing prices longer in Akron than other parts of the country. I bought the neighboring house, which shares a driveway with Dreisbach House, in 2014 on a lease-to-purchase loan because even with a $54,000 mortgage it was under water. I expect to pay off what I call Cressler House in the next two years.

I raised my three eldest sons and birthed my fourth in Dreisbach House. Then, for several years, I rented it out and used the proceeds to pay both properties’ mortgages. After my last tenants moved out three years ago, I began restoring the house with the plan to move back into it and turn Cressler House into an AirBnB.

Several considerations led to this decision. First, several friends have acquired properties and turned them into AirBnBs, which have earned more annually than has renting Dreisbach House on a long-term lease. Secondly, short-term guests aren’t there long enough to be as hard on a home as long-term tenants. And, finally, I dream of having a place where my adult children, their spouses/partners and, hopefully one day, children can stay when they visit.

But plans change. Last summer I decided to remain in the more modest Cressler House and instead turn Dreisbach House into an AirBnB. At the time, drywall covering the original walls, window frames and baseboards in three of Dreisbach House’s four bedrooms had been removed. Plaster walls and the wood of the window frames and baseboards needed repaired (or replaced), while proper electrical outlets needed installed.

Not a floor nor a step in Dreisbach House squeaks because the exterior walls are constructed of two layers of brick. The thick masonry keeps the home as cool as a cave in summers – an important consideration in 1909 when air conditioning was not available – while cheap coal once fueled the boiler in winters. Gas lights hung from the bedroom ceilings, the plumbing of which has been discovered each time I’ve installed a ceiling fan, and the original electrical wiring was knob and tube.

The interior brick behind the plaster walls and new up-to-code wiring in Holly Christensen's house. — The interior layer of brick under the lathe and plaster, exposed to install wiring to code.

In order to install GFCI (ground fault circuit interrupter) outlets in the bedrooms, several inches of lathe and plaster were removed, revealing the interior layer of brick. That brick causes the plaster walls to often bubble and crack and I considered covering them with paneling after the wiring was completed. But the supervising contractor, Paul Mann, had a different solution.

“Look, Holly,” he said, “paneling would hide any moisture that may seep through the walls as well as any mold that develops as a result. Also, the remaining original baseboards will likely crack if we pull them off to install paneling behind. You’ll save the original baseboards and some money if you refinish the plaster walls. Any bubbles or cracks that occur down the road can be repaired.”

The bedroom ceilings also needed thought. One had been covered with acoustic tiles, while in another bedroom I had bead-board paneling hung to cover water damage caused when a third-floor radiator ruptured and leaked. Paul recommended putting in drywall ceilings, an upgrade to the project, but worth the added cost long term.

Jack, the contractor who did the work, turned the bedrooms into pristine boxes. In the bedroom with an elongated closet over the staircase, he reconfigured the closet by installing a wall on one side so that it is now only slightly wider than its door. A nook was created by cutting a hole in the wall that had been part of the closet. Paul helped Jack design Arts and Crafts-style framing around the original closet door and nook opening.

The original fresco at Holly Christensen's house.

The house did the next step: choose colors. When I bought Dreisbach House, wallpaper covered the walls on the ground floor. The first day I took possession of the house, I pulled it all off. In the living room and stairway, original frescos of cherry branches in full bloom were revealed. Unfortunately the plaster was severely cracked in many places and had to be patched and painted over – except for one panel alongside a window on the landing to the second floor.

Using a chart of historic colors from January Paints, I matched a color called Venetian Glass to a green stripe in the remaining fresco. It is now the color of the bedroom walls. In the hallways and living room I chose Parsnip, an off-white bordering on light taupe. These colors look both original to the house and make the wooden accents pop in complementary splendor.

By mid-January Dreisbach House had been put back together and it was time determine what else was needed to turn it into an AirBnB. Stay tuned for the next installment.

This column was first published in the Akron Beacon Journal on Sunday, April 13, 2025.

I met Herman Dreisbach in February of 2003 when he was 88 years old. His wife of 60 years had died the previous February, and he was selling his house to move to Atlanta, where his son and daughter-in-law lived.

Once a tall man, Mr. Dreisbach’s upper back and neck stooped forward from osteoporosis; his slow gait belied muscles that had weakened with age and bones that ached.

Each of the three times I visited his house, the final time with the home inspector, I had small children with me. Unperturbed by youngsters touring his tidy home, Mr. Dreisbach comfortably chatted with them.

The last time we met, Mr. Dreisbach took my hand in both of his, and with tears in his eyes, he told me: “I hope you’ll be as happy in this house as we were.” He died nine months later.

I’ve now owned what we call Dreisbach House for over 20 years. My first three children spent the bulk of their childhoods in the home, and my fourth son was born there. Then, for several years, I lived with the father of my youngest two children in his home and rented out Dreisbach House.

Dreisbach House when I first rented it in 2011. (At the back of the driveway is Hoover, the world’s sweetest Sheltie, who died in 2016.)

No tenant kept the house as clean as I did. But I soon learned that messes can be cleaned and damages repaired. Still, my heart hurt when tenants were not gentle with the house.

Little expense was spared when a maternal uncle of Mr. Dreisbach built the house in 1909. The exterior walls of the home are two layers of brick, which is why to this day none of the stairs or floors creak. Like a manufactured cave, all that brick keeps the house, which has hot water heat and no air conditioning, remarkably cool in the summer and warm in the winter.

The Arts and Crafts interior includes quarter-sawn oak columns and panels, a fireplace with decorative tiles from a renowned turn-of-the-century manufacturer, multiple pocket doors and two original light fixtures. And because the home remained in one fastidious family for 94 years, it is in remarkable shape.

Dreisbach House shares a driveway with its next-door neighbor to the south. In 2014, I bought that house, too.

For more than 60 years, it belonged to Claire and Gloria Cressler. Claire had been a widower for three years when I first met him. Years later, he would die in my arms.

In 2020, I moved into what we call Cressler House. I decided to stop renting Dreisbach House when my most recent tenants moved out. I owe less than $8,000 on the mortgage and, like its first owner, that puts me in a position to remodel the home without sparing many expenses.

Now, a new thread will be added to the warp and weft of my byline throughout my years as a Beacon Journal columnist − the process of transforming my beloved family home, the Dreisbach House, into a jewel. These columns will include design choices and the progress of projects, but also the histories of the people who previously lived here, as well as my family’s history in these homes.

Column changes

I was hired in October of 2016 to write a parenting/family column for the Akron Beacon Journal. At the time, my eldest child was in college and my fifth (and youngest) child was in preschool. Those first years, I wrote mostly on parenting.

Letters from readers often compared me to syndicated parenting columnist John Rosemond. Older readers regularly complimented me on how similarly to Rosemond’s approach I parented, while younger readers wrote to say they admired how differently my parenting advice was to that of Rosemond’s. Go figure.

Throughout my time at the Beacon, I have often written columns that were pointedly political. In 2017, I explained why I, a mother of a child with Down syndrome, was opposed to the Down syndrome abortion ban passed by the Ohio legislature and signed by the governor. Just before that column ran, the Beacon’s editor told me I’d get a lot of negative emails over it, but also that he knew I could handle it.

I’ve gotten far worse emails since, particularly when I’ve written anything involving race. I know I’ve done something right when I’ve provoked the ire of bigots who take the time to let me know what they think − though rarely about what I’ve written. No, bigots like to deride me as a person and, almost always, what I look like.

Three of my children are now adults. The first two have multiple college degrees and full-blown careers. One is getting married later this year. My relationship with them all is understandably different than it was over seven years ago, and yet, two of my adult sons still call me almost every day.

As a result, the content of my columns has expanded to topics facing our community, which often are issues that directly affect families.

To best accommodate this array of storylines and opinions, my column has a new, and more appropriate, home in the print edition’s community section. Here, I can have columns that are political, others that are personal, and some that are the ins and outs of a major project.

I hope you’ll enjoy reading future columns as much as I will writing them.

This column first appeared in the Akron Beacon Journal on Sunday, January 21, 2024.