Restoration Terminology
Adaptive Re-use: The process of converting a building to a use other than that for which it was designed, e.g. changing a factory into housing.
Art Deco (1920-40): Architectural style characterized by an overall linear, angular, vertical appearance, often ornamented with zig-zags, chevrons and vertical projections above the roof line.
Building Code: Standards adopted by local governments regulating methods and materials of construction, egress, accessibility and other factors affecting the construction of safe and sanitary buildings.
Baluster: A series of short pillars or other uprights that support a handrail or top rail. Balusters are often lathe-turned, although they are also quite often simple square posts and cutouts.
Balustrade: A series of balusters connected on top by a top rail or handrail, used on staircases, balconies, porches, etc.
Beaux Arts (1885-1925): Architectural style characterized by monumental and imposing appearance, symmetrical façade, a variety of stone finishes and embellishments of garlands, quoins, pilasters and paired colossal columns.
Brownstone: A predominantly brown sandstone used early on in American architecture for general construction; common in many urban areas.
Bungalow (1890-1940): Architectural style characterized by low-pitched rooflines, broad overhangs, dormer windows, porches with large square piers or tapered support posts and many windows with broad, flat casings.
Certificate of Appropriateness: A document awarded by a preservation commission or architectural review board allowing an applicant to proceed with a proposed alteration, demolition or new construction in a designated historic area, following a review of the proposal's suitability according to applicable criteria.
Certified Historic Structure: Any structure that is listed individually in the National Register of Historic Places or is located in a registered historic district and certified by the Secretary of the Interior as being of historical significance to the district.
Code Compliance: Ensuring that a building is built in agreement with the appropriate building codes.
Code Enforcement: Local regulation of building practices and enforcement of safety and housing code provisions, a principal tool to ensure neighborhood upkeep.
Casing: The finished visible framework or trim around a door or window.
Chair Rail: A wooden molding that runs along an interior wall at the level of the back of a chair; may also serve as the crowning piece at the top of a wainscoting.
Coffering: Decoration on a ceiling formed by recessed panels, sometimes highly ornamented.
Colonial Revival (1870-1950): An architectural style characterized by a balanced façade, the use of decorative door crowns, pediments or porticos to emphasize the front entrance, double-hung windows with multiple panes and frequent use of decorative cornices.
Corbelling: A series of projections, each stepped out farther than the one below it; most often found on masonry walls and chimneys.
Corinthian Order: A classical order characterized by slender fluted columns and ornate capitals decorated with stylized acanthus leaves.
Cornice: The projection at the top of a wall, the top course or decorative molding of a wall.
Crown Molding: The crowning or finishing molding, most often located in the area of transition between wall and ceiling.
Demolition by Neglect: The destruction of a building through abandonment or lack of maintenance.
Design Guidelines: Criteria developed by preservation commissions and architectural review boards to identify design concerns in an area and to help property owners ensure that rehabilitation and new construction respect the character of designated buildings and districts.
Denticulated: That which is embellished with dentils (small square blocks found in series) or dentil-like ornamentation.
Doric Order: A classical order characterized by overall simplicity, a plain capital, heavy fluted columns and no base.
Dormer: A vertical window projecting from the slope of a roof.
Dutch Colonial (1625-1830): An architectural style characterized by a steeply pitched gable or gambrel roof with a pronounced eave overhang, Dutch doors and commonly six-over-six double hung windows with exterior shutters.
Easement: A less-than-fee interest in real property acquired through donation or purchase and carried as a deed restriction or covenant to protect important open spaces, building facades and interiors.
Enabling Legislation: Federal or state laws that authorize governing bodies within their jurisdictions to enact particular measures or delegate powers such as enactment of local landmarks and historical district ordinances, zoning and taxation.
Entasis: In classical architecture, the slight convex curve of the shaft of a column.
Façade: The principal face or front elevation of a building.
Fanlight: A semicircular or fan-shaped window with a radiating glazing bar system, usually found over entrance doors.
Fascia Board: A flat board used to cover the ends of roof rafters.
Federal (1780-1830): An architectural style characterized by overall symmetry, semicircular or elliptical fanlight over a six-panel front door with elaborate trim, decorated cornice and six-paned double hung windows.
Fixed Sash: A fixed frame window (or part of a window) that does not open.
Flush Door: A door with plain flat surfaces.
French Door: A door characterized by having glass panes throughout its entire length, usually found in pairs.
Frieze: Any plain or decorative band, or board, on the top of a wall immediately below the cornice, sometimes decorated with festoons or other ornamentation.
Gable: The triangular end of an exterior wall in a building with a ridged roof.
Georgian (1700-1780): An architectural style characterized by symmetry of floor plan and facade, usually gable roof and central chimney, entrance door flanked by columns or pilasters and capped by a decorative crown or a triangular pediment and six-pane double windows.
Historic District: A geographically definable area with a significant concentration of buildings, structures or sites unified by past event, design, workmanship, sense of cohesiveness or related historical and aesthetic associations. The significance of a district may be recognized through listing in a local, state or national landmarks register and may be protected legally through enactment of a local historic district ordinance administered by a historic district board or commission.
Hip Roof: A roof formed by four pitched roof surfaces.
Ionic Order: A classical order characterized by a capital embellished with opposing volutes (spiral designs).
Italianate (1840-1889): An architectural style characterized by two or three stories, visually balanced facades, decorative bracketed crowns or lintels over windows and doors and narrow double hung windows and double doors.
Keystone: The wedge-shaped stone found at the center of an arch.
Landmarks Register: A listing of buildings or districts designated for historical, architectural or other special significance that may carry protection for listed properties.
Lath: Wood or metal strips that are attached to framing members and are used as a supporting base for plaster, tiles, shingles or other building materials.
Masonry: Work constructed by a mason using stone, brick, concrete blocks, tile or similar materials.
Molding: A continuous decorative band which often serves the function of obscuring the joint formed when two surfaces meet.
Newel Post: The post supporting the handrails at the top and bottom of a stairway, usually with a decorative cap.
Pane: A single piece of window glass. Windows are often described according to the number of panes they have. For example, a window with eight panes of glass is call an eight-light window. Often a double-hung window is described in terms of its two sashes (e.g. six-over-six window indicates that each sash has six panes).
Pediment: A triangular section framed by a horizontal molding on its base and two sloping moldings on each of its sides, often used as a crowning element for doors, windows, etc.
Queen Anne (1880-1910): An architectural style characterized by irregularity of plan and massing, variety of wall textures, variety of window treatments, multiple steep roofs, large porches and frequent use of bay windows.
Streetscape: The distinguishing character of a particular street as created by its width, paving materials and the design of the surrounding buildings.
Sweat Equity: The investment of property owner's or occupant's own labor in rehabilitation work as a form or payment.
Sidelight: A usually long fixed sash located beside a door or window, often found in pairs.
Soffit: The exposed underside of an arch, cornice, balcony, beam, etc., sometimes embellished with panels or other decorative devices.
Stringcourse: A continuous horizontal band of brick, stone or wood on the exterior wall of a building used for decorative purposes or as a means of breaking up a large expanse of wall surface.
Summer Kitchen: An auxiliary kitchen, often added to a house at a later date, used when it was desirable to keep the heat of cooking removed from the main living areas.Terra Cotta: A fine-grained fired clay product used ornamentally on the exterior of buildings – may be glazed or unglazed, molded or carved, and is usually brownish red in color, but may also be found in tints of gray, white and bronze.
Transom Window: A small window or series of panes above a door or above a casement or double hung window. The horizontal member that separates a transom window from the door or window below is called a transom bar.
Tuscan Order: A classical order characterized by extreme simplicity. Columns are not fluted, capitals are unadorned and triglyphs – a feature of the Doric order – are absent.