THINGS I FIND IN OLD SLC HOUSES

Published by: Bradley
Published date: June 9, 2026
Last updated: June 9, 2026
Estimated read time: 8 minutes

Old Salt Lake City houses are fun.

Not always in the way homeowners mean when they use the word fun.

Sometimes I remove a piece of trim and find beautiful original woodwork.

Sometimes I find three layers of flooring, a vent that goes nowhere, seven different screws holding one hinge together, and evidence that somebody in 1984 possessed both a circular saw and unreasonable confidence.

That's the deal with an old house.

You're not just working on the house.

You're working on everyone who has ever worked on the house before you.

And Salt Lake has plenty of genuinely old housing stock. The Avenues alone contains nearly 100 square blocks of late-19th- and early-20th-century residential architecture, while Capitol Hill is identified by Salt Lake City as its oldest surviving residential area.

So if your house has been standing for 70, 90, or 120 years?

There are probably a few surprises in there.

Here are some of my favorites.

1. LAYERS. SO MANY LAYERS.

Old houses are basically archaeological sites with mortgages.

Flooring is where this gets especially entertaining.

You may think you have:

vinyl flooring.

You actually have:

vinyl,
over plywood,
over old sheet flooring,
over another underlayment,
over hardwood someone apparently decided had offended them.

Walls can do the same thing.

Wallpaper.

Paint.

More wallpaper.

Paneling.

Drywall.

Plaster.

Another layer of paint applied with the emotional energy of someone trying to sell the house by Tuesday.

Every generation gets a turn.

That's why a “simple” removal job in an old house occasionally becomes:

“Well. Look at this.”

2. ORIGINAL WOODWORK SOMEBODY TRIED VERY HARD TO HIDE

This one makes me happy.

You pull something away and discover:

old casing,

original baseboards,

solid doors,

hardwood,

built-in cabinetry,

or some weird little wood detail nobody has appreciated since Eisenhower.

Older Salt Lake neighborhoods preserve an unusually broad range of residential architecture. The Avenues, for example, contains styles dating from the late 1860s onward, while the city's preservation program specifically emphasizes maintaining the architectural character of historic neighborhoods.

Which is why my instinct around good old woodwork is:

Don't immediately rip it out.

Is it damaged?

Maybe.

Painted seventeen times?

Probably.

Perfectly straight?

Let's not get carried away.

But if it's solid, repairable, and belongs to the house?

Give it a chance.

I'd rather restore a good old door than replace it with a hollow rectangle that has all the character of an airport bathroom.

3. THE PREVIOUS OWNER'S PERSONAL BUILDING CODE

Every old house contains work performed under a highly specialized regulatory framework known as:

“Well, that's how Gary did it.”

Gary had rules.

They were not Utah's rules.

Gary believed:

one screw was sufficient,

shims were optional,

everything could be solved with caulk,

and level was more of an emotional concept.

You'll find things like:

random brackets,

mismatched fasteners,

pieces of wood cut to inexplicable dimensions,

holes patched with materials not traditionally associated with walls,

and alterations that clearly began with:

“You know what would probably work?”

Some of it works beautifully.

Honestly.

People have always been clever.

Some old homemade solutions are impressive.

Others make me take off my sunglasses because I need the full resolution of my eyesight to process what I'm seeing.

4. DOORS THAT HAVE BEEN MODIFIED INTO SUBMISSION

Old doors tell stories.

Mostly stories involving paint.

A good solid-wood door may have:

three different hinge locations,

old latch mortises,

filled holes,

new hardware,

old hardware,

another coat of paint,

and a top corner that has been sanded slightly every time the house settled since 1954.

Then somebody finally says:

“This door sucks.”

Maybe.

Or maybe the door has spent 70 years adapting to a house that keeps changing around it.

I check:

hinges,

frame,

strike plate,

clearance,

hardware,

and the actual condition of the door

before deciding anything needs replacement.

The door may be the victim here.

Justice for doors.

5. WALLS THAT ARE NOT STRAIGHT

This comes up a lot in carpentry.

You take measurements.

Everything looks reasonable.

Then you install something against the wall.

And discover the wall has spent the last century developing a gentle curve.

Welcome.

Older houses can have walls, floors, ceilings, and openings that aren't perfectly:

level,

plumb,

square,

or consistent.

That doesn't necessarily mean something is catastrophically wrong.

Buildings age.

Materials move.

Construction tolerances were different.

Renovations happen.

But this is exactly why custom carpentry in an older house can take more thought.

You can't always build something perfectly square in the shop and assume the 1912 wall will respectfully accommodate it.

Sometimes the wall wins.

6. MYSTERY OUTLETS, SWITCHES & WIRES

I find these.

I do not adopt them.

An old house may contain electrical components from several generations of upgrades.

A switch may control something that no longer exists.

A receptacle may have been added decades after the room was built.

You may discover abandoned or unfamiliar wiring during unrelated work.

That's where my curiosity ends and the electrician's phone number begins.

I don't care how tempting it is to say:

“It's probably dead.”

Probably is not an electrical-testing instrument.

Old Salt Lake City homes can have electrical histories as layered as the flooring.

If something electrical looks questionable, get the appropriate licensed professional involved.

7. EVIDENCE OF ROOMS THAT USED TO BE SOMETHING ELSE

This one is great.

You start looking closely and realize:

that closet used to be a doorway.

That doorway used to be wider.

That wall used to stop somewhere else.

That basement room definitely wasn't always a bedroom.

That strange patch in the floor is where something used to stand.

Houses evolve.

Especially houses that have been around long enough to serve multiple generations of families with completely different ideas about how a home should work.

Salt Lake City's older neighborhoods document long periods of residential growth and changing architectural tastes; Capitol Hill alone reflects more than a century of residential construction and development.

Your floor plan may be less original design and more:

director's cut.

8. BUILT-INS THAT MAKE ME QUESTION WHY WE STOPPED BUILDING BUILT-INS

Old houses sometimes contain wonderfully practical little things.

Niches.

Shelves.

Telephone cabinets.

Linen storage.

Window seats.

Tiny medicine cabinets.

Dining-room cabinetry.

Odd little drawers.

Some are beautiful.

Some look like they were constructed during a hostage negotiation.

But I love the principle.

People used to build storage into the architecture.

Then we apparently decided every possession should live inside a freestanding particleboard rectangle.

In smaller Salt Lake homes, old built-in thinking is worth stealing.

You don't always need more room.

You need more intelligent use of the room.

9. THE BASEMENT OF MANY ERAS

The basement is where chronology breaks down completely.

Upstairs:

Basement stairs:

Family room:

Bathroom:

One wall:

unknown civilization.

A lot of older homes began with unfinished or utilitarian basement space that was altered later.

That can leave behind:

odd framing,

low ceilings,

mismatched doors,

strange storage,

patched surfaces,

and transitions that suggest at least four separate people independently announced:

“I can finish a basement.”

Some of these spaces are completely serviceable.

Some need cosmetic improvement.

And some contain things outside handyman territory involving structure, electrical, plumbing, moisture, egress, or other code considerations.

The basement is where I most frequently say:

“Before we make this prettier, somebody needs to look at that.”

10. OLD PAINT THAT DESERVES RESPECT

This one isn't a joke.

If you're working on a Salt Lake home built before 1978, old painted surfaces need to be approached appropriately because lead-based paint may be present.

EPA says homes built before 1978 are more likely to contain lead-based paint, and federal Renovation, Repair and Painting requirements generally apply to paid renovation work that disturbs qualifying amounts of painted surfaces in pre-1978 housing.

That means an old painted door or window isn't something a contractor should casually attack with a power sander while dust goes everywhere.

For covered work, lead-safe certification and work practices matter.

Old paint isn't automatically dangerous just sitting there in good condition; EPA notes that properly maintained lead-based paint generally poses little risk, while deteriorating or disturbed paint is where hazards become important.

So yes:

I like old trim.

I like original doors.

I also like functioning nervous systems.

We can appreciate history responsibly.

11. THINGS THAT HAVE BEEN PAINTED THAT SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN PAINTED

Hardware.

Hinges.

Latches.

Strike plates.

Screws.

Window hardware.

Sometimes apparently the entire concept of metallurgy.

There's a special moment when I remove a hinge from an old door and realize it's actually beautiful hardware underneath 63 years of beige paint.

This is part of why I don't immediately throw old components away.

Sometimes you don't have bad hardware.

You have good hardware wearing nine coats of landlord white.

That's different.

12. HARDWOOD HIDING UNDER SOMETHING TERRIBLE

This is one of the classic old-house discoveries.

Pull up a corner of old carpet and:

Hello.

There it is.

Does that mean every old floor underneath carpet is secretly pristine hardwood?

Absolutely not.

Calm down.

It may be:

damaged,

patched,

stained,

cut up,

partially removed,

or simply not worth restoring.

But don't assume what's visible is what's original.

Older houses are very good at hiding their better decisions underneath newer, worse ones.

13. CABINETS THAT HAVE SURVIVED MORE OWNERS THAN I HAVE RELATIONSHIPS

Old cabinets are interesting because people often underestimate how repairable cabinetry can be.

You may have:

good solid boxes,

bad doors,

loose hinges,

worn hardware,

damaged drawer slides,

ugly paint,

or modifications accumulated over decades.

Sometimes the right answer is replacement.

Sometimes it absolutely isn't.

If the core cabinetry is good, repairing:

doors,

drawers,

hardware,

shelving,

or damaged wood

may save a huge amount of otherwise useful material.

Again:

Old is not a diagnosis.

14. TINY CLOSETS AND ENORMOUS CONFIDENCE

I remain convinced people in 1935 owned twelve possessions.

You open an old closet and discover:

one rod.

One shelf.

Four square feet.

That's apparently it.

Modern storage demands are different.

So this is one of the places where I don't feel particularly guilty changing an old house.

Better:

shelving,

closet systems,

built-ins,

drawers,

and thoughtful storage

can make a historic or mid-century house much easier to live in without stripping away its character.

The old house doesn't need to remain inconvenient as some kind of preservation ritual.

We can respect history and own sneakers.

15. A PIECE OF WOOD THAT IS BETTER THAN ANYTHING YOU WERE ABOUT TO BUY

This might be my favorite.

You start taking something apart and find a piece of lumber that's:

dense,

straight,

beautiful,

and apparently capable of surviving nuclear winter.

Then you remember somebody was about to throw it away.

Older construction can contain materials worth preserving when they're in good condition.

And no, that doesn't mean every old 2x4 belongs in the Smithsonian.

But before removing original:

woodwork,

doors,

flooring,

cabinetry,

or other architectural material,

I like to ask:

Can this be saved?

Because once good old material goes into the dumpster, it's remarkably difficult to reinstall it.

16. HISTORIC-DISTRICT RULES YOU DIDN'T KNOW YOU BOUGHT WITH THE HOUSE

This one is specifically Salt Lake.

Some older homes are located within locally designated historic districts or are individually designated landmark sites.

Salt Lake City says exterior changes to properties in local historic districts generally require Planning approval, while properties located only within National Register districts do not automatically carry that same local Planning approval requirement, though normal permits may still apply.

So before replacing:

historic exterior windows,

doors,

porches,

trim,

or other exterior architectural features

on a designated property:

Check first.

“Bradley's motorcycle looked really cool parked outside while we accidentally violated preservation rules” is not a legal defense.

THE BEST THING I FIND?

Proof that houses survive.

That's really what I like about working on old Salt Lake homes.

You open them up and see:

repairs,

changes,

mistakes,

good craftsmanship,

bad craftsmanship,

old materials,

new materials,

and evidence that people have been adapting the same building to their lives for generations.

The house didn't remain frozen in time.

It kept working.

That's the goal.

I'm not interested in turning every old house into a museum.

I'm also not interested in stripping every interesting thing out of it until it resembles every gray flipped house on Zillow.

Keep the good.

Repair what's repairable.

Improve what doesn't work.

Undo the truly insane stuff.

Then add your chapter.

Preferably with fewer zip ties.

GOT AN OLD SALT LAKE HOUSE?

Send me the weird thing.

Seriously.

The mystery alcove.

The crooked trim.

The ancient door.

The inexplicable built-in.

The cabinet nobody understands.

The basement feature that appears to have been designed by M.C. Escher.

I like this stuff.

And if what we uncover needs an electrician, plumber, structural professional, lead-safe specialist, or somebody else entirely?

I'll tell you.

That's part of working on old houses too.

Call or text Bradley:
(801) 644-3329

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