If you own one of these older homes, or are thinking about buying one, it's important to know what's worth preserving, what you can go ahead and refurbish and what you're obliged to do by law.

“There's a lot of detail, a lot of thought, and there's a whole lot that goes into preserving an older home,” said Rodney Barker, owner of Buffalo Building and Remodeling. “I'm kind of old school. I believe in keeping the old the old.”

Historic neighborhoods

Some of what you can and have to preserve is dictated by your home's neighborhood. If it's in a historic neighborhood, you'll have to seek some approvals.

The Historic and Design Review Commission doesn't have to review proposed changes to the interior. Ordinary repairs and maintenance issues on the exterior generally can be approved internally and quickly.

But larger changes on the exterior, such as adding a bedroom or switching from siding to brick, is what goes to the commission and must receive the board's approval.

“For every house it's going to be a little bit different based on the character-defining features,” said Shanon Peterson Wasielewski, Historic Preservation Officer with the city of San Antonio.

Some of those features might include unique doors and windows, eaves and overhangs, and they depend on what style home it is.

“All of the exterior, we want to keep it looking as much as possible as it looked 100 years ago,” Barker said.

The “guts” of a house definitely should be updated to make the house more marketable, but it's not something a seller has to do as long as it's disclosed.

But updates to bring electric and plumbing systems up to code may be necessary depending on the remodeling job.

Maintaining character

And because not all old homes are in historic neighborhoods with strict renovation requirements, preserving an older house might simply help it retain some original flavor, no matter what neighborhood it's in.

“All those things reflect that larger cohesive design for that property,” Wasielewski said. “Any time those things can be maintained, it helps maintain that scale of the structure.”

When Marty and Ricki Kushner bought their Tobin Hill house in 1998, they did so knowing that it would need plenty of updates.

But at the same time, they wanted to keep it looking as original as when it was built nearly 100 years ago.

“A house can be restored as cheaply as possible, or as well as possible. We chose to restore this house as well as possible,” Marty Kushner said.

First, they updated the major issues, such as installing air conditioning, leveling the foundation, fixing the roof and replacing the wiring.

“We were very fortunate in the sense that the guts of the house were still in decent shape,” he said.

A few years later, they started to go through all the smaller details, restoring all 50 windows to their original condition, taking down all of the “cheap 1960s paneling” and refinishing the original hardwood floors.

Even now, they're still making some replacements, putting in wood screens rather than aluminum ones.

“Our job in life is to preserve this house and keep it in good shape so when we're gone it can be turned over to someone else,” Marty Kushner said.

And that means keeping it as original as possible.

“It's a shame when someone buys a historic house and says, ‘Now I'm going to gut it on the inside,'“ he said. “At that point in time, I think you should sell the house and buy somewhere else.”

Marketing your old home

If you're thinking about selling a historic home, think twice before you gut it.

“Typically they'd much prefer the house to be as original as possible,” said Ann Van Pelt, a real estate agent with the Phyllis Browning Co. “If people are buying in a historic district they want it to look like a historic district. Even if it's renovated, it should still have the character.”

An older home that has a fresh coat of paint, nice countertops (not necessarily granite) and is clean is what most buyers prefer.

If it's totally gutted, “their reaction is really quite negative,” Van Pelt said.

If you want to keep an original feature, but the place is falling apart, you can hire a contractor to make cabinets, molding and other features that look just like they did way back when.

“We tried to preserve as much of the woodwork and the architectural features of the house,” Ricki said. “There were a couple examples of cabinets already in the house, and I used those as my models and had the cabinet work duplicate that.”

Though sometimes that replicating might be difficult to do.

“You walk into historic houses sometimes and you see the funky-colored tile and you're like ‘I don't want green tile in my bathroom,'“ Wasielewski said. “But it's amazing how fantastic it can look if they maintain those features.”

And those features can have some marketability to them.

“I can't be the only crazy person in the world who looks for original stuff when shopping for a house,” Wasielewski said.

While she looks for the original stuff, don't think she's using a 100-year-old ice box.

“Upgrading appliances, that's completely understandable and desirable,” Wasielewski said. “But if I am shopping for a house and I see ‘replacement windows' or ‘newly updated,' that always makes me think it's going to look like a suburban house on the inside.”

Older homes have unique features, but if they're gutted, many times they resemble just any other house.

“I think a lot of people are drawn to historic houses because they don't look like the inside of any tract house,” Wasielewski said.

That suburban look might just cross your home off the list for the next older-home buyer that comes down the road.

“You modernize a home and someone's looking for a historic home, you've pretty much put yourself out of the market,” Barker said. “You limit your marketability.”