Old Home Rescue

Old Home Rescue Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from Old Home Rescue, Contractor, 401 S Blackwelder Avenue, Oklahoma City, OK.

We specialize in preserving places people call home - Main Street, museums, architecturally significant structures, and the homes that define our communities through preservation consulting, architectural design, construction, and on-going stewardship.

08/05/2026

A view from atop the Flower Bluff Manor in Sulphur, which was hit by the April 2024 tornado.

Today’s site visit was to complete final revisions to the plans before being sent to our trade partners to reconstruct this piece of Sulphur’s history.

07/30/2026

This home on Classen Drive in Heritage Hills was flipped in 2020. We are now unflipping many of things completed during this time and repairing a number of other items.

So far we have;
• Repaired & painted original windows
• Added EnergyStar rated storm windows from QUANTAPANEL
• Roof repairs due to leaking exhaust vents
• Porch and steps replacement with integral color
• Exterior painting

Still to come is a balustrade replacement as well as a more historically appropriate door replacement.

Stonewall’s Town Hall is a good case study in the long-term implications of building envelope choices 10+ years after th...
07/20/2026

Stonewall’s Town Hall is a good case study in the long-term implications of building envelope choices 10+ years after the project is completed.

This historic bank building was rehabilitated in 2013 and replica wood windows with insulated glass was installed. For years, it looked great. Then one missed maintenance cycle, and the deterioration moved fast.

Two things caused the failure:

• First, a 1-3/8” wood sash doesn’t have enough room for an insulated glass unit to be properly installed with an exterior glazing bead. The margin just isn’t there.

• Second, when — not if — water gets into that gaps it has nowhere to escape. To add to this, these sash were built from interior-grade wood, likely poplar, which was common from this regional manufacturer when budget was a factor

For a town of under 500 people, that combination turns into a big problem, fast, and it becomes one on a timeline nobody budgeted for. What should’ve been a simple maintenance item wasn’t found until the windows had rotted from the inside out.

We’ve been working with the town administrator on a solution for three and a half years now — that’s just how long funding takes to come together in a small town. In the meantime, the rot progressed past the point where repair was technically feasible.

Last week, city council approved replacing the windows with sunwindowsdoors architectural aluminum-clad units, which we’ll install later this year.

The lessons:
- Specify more resilient materials up front
- Understand how to blend traditional and modern building science
- Maintain buildings annually

That’s the goal on every project — helping owners steward these buildings so they’re not blindsided by a large capital expense every 10-15 years.

Proper Planning & InvestigationIt’s often missed in residential and small commercial construction for a number of reason...
06/08/2026

Proper Planning & Investigation

It’s often missed in residential and small commercial construction for a number of reasons; cost, atypical, timeline, amongst others.

It’s also the key behind a successful project and its longevity.

Time to ask why and how. Time to assemble the right process, products, people, and plans for this project.

We’ve completed hundreds of projects… but this is the only way in which they’re ever the same.

Pictures: Wootten Residence in chickashaok

We’ve considered changing our name…For a while now, I've wrestled with whether "Old Home Rescue" was still the right nam...
06/05/2026

We’ve considered changing our name…

For a while now, I've wrestled with whether "Old Home Rescue" was still the right name for us.

In March of 2020 when we rebranded due to COVID, we were deciding between Old House Rescue (a little This Old House vibe) and Old Home Rescue. Ultimately, we settled on Home because the word has an inherently different connotation - "home" makes us feel different than "house".

Today, though, it can cause some confusion with Main Street and commercial clients - they see it and assume we only do residential work.

So I've been seriously considering rebranding... 1907 Construction, Heritage Design-Build, and several others just never felt right.

Then I realized the name wasn't the problem - it was that I'd never quite been able to communicate why I had such a connection with "Home". Then it hit me...

We restore places that people call home - the Main Street you picture when you think about your hometown, the homestead at the local museum your school visited in elementary school, the building designed by the architect their city still talks about.

Home isn't a building type. It's the relationship between people and place. The memories, the stories, the nostalgia - the physical vessels where we live our life.

So.. the name stays. The work continues. And we're doing some of our most interesting work right now - a historic tax credit rehabilitation/reconstruction, stewardship partnerships with owners who take the long view, stabilizing a barn that was moved from near my grandparents centennial farm to a museum, working on our 4th National Historic Landmark project, and a few complicated residential garages.

If you have a place worth saving - whatever name you call it - we'd like to be a part of that story.

Below are just some fun pictures as of lately:
• Shinn Barn, located SE of Okeene prior to its move to the Harn Homestead
• Historic photo in front of Nelson's Pharmacy, now Perry's City Hall, used for a Main Street facade design
• Wootten Residence in Chickasha, later sold to the owner of the Fulton Motor Company, has been purchased and is once again in the Fulton Family.

“Why Design-Build for exteriors?” Mesta Park Rehabilitation Pt 3 After working on hundreds of historic homes, we’ve lear...
05/17/2026

“Why Design-Build for exteriors?”

Mesta Park Rehabilitation Pt 3

After working on hundreds of historic homes, we’ve learned the small details are usually where delays, questions, and long-term failures happen.

Some of those details seem minor — but they permanently change the look, performance, and lifespan of a structure when they’re missed.

• Full runs of siding below windows instead of notching around them like typical new construction
• Corner caps instead of oversized corner boards
• Wall section details that move water away from the structure while maintaining historic depth and proportions
• Cottage-style window configurations instead of standard 50/50 divided units
• Reworking the attic window design after field measurements revealed the need for updated gable venting

That last change didn’t just improve the design — it solved a ventilation issue that was increasing second-floor temperatures and shortening the lifespan of the roofing system.

Details matter to the Historic Preservation Commission, our clients, our trade partners, and to us. Most importantly, they matter to the future of the structure itself.

When details are missed:

• CAs don’t get approved
• Trade partners are left without clear direction
• Water management fails years later
• Historic character gets compromised
• And the structure suffers long-term consequences

That’s why we chose the design-build approach for preservation work.

We don’t see exteriors as isolated scopes of work. We approach them holistically — understanding how historic structures were originally intended to function, how modern materials interact with them, and how to preserve their character while improving durability and performance.

Good preservation work isn’t just about making an old home look historic again. It’s about understanding why it worked in the first place.

“You painted the brick?!” Mesta Park Rehabilitation - Pt 2 Yes, we did, which is not standard for us. Painting of the ma...
04/11/2026

“You painted the brick?!”
Mesta Park Rehabilitation - Pt 2

Yes, we did, which is not standard for us.

Painting of the masonry was approved by the Oklahoma City Historic Preservation Commission, but for complex reasons.

The home’s masonry had previously been painted, then aggressive methods were used to remove paint from two of the sides.

These aggressive methods;
- removed the kiln-hardened, protective outer layer and caused pitting
- caused the bricks to be more porous
- accelerated damage and decreased lifespan of the brick without intervention

This is why these treatments are not recommended by the Heritage & Historic Preservation - NPS or local design guidelines.

On the rear elevation of the home had infill brick and partial paint removal.

Our solution:

• Repair the existing masonry & replacement of only necessary masonry units

• Paint the masonry with Keim mineral paint which,
- chemically bonds to the brick rather than film forming like latex/acrylic paint
- is highly v***r permeable
- doesn’t feel or flake
- has a 20-30 year lifespan

Historic homes are complex structure that require thoughtful planning in order for them to last another hundred years.

Mesta Park Rehabilitation - Pt 1 Over the next several posts we’ll dive into the transformation of this mestapark home.F...
04/09/2026

Mesta Park Rehabilitation - Pt 1

Over the next several posts we’ll dive into the transformation of this mestapark home.

From the story to the design to why we painted the masonry, which are all too much for a single post.

What did this project include?
- A client ready to steward this home
- Preservation Design & Certificate of Appropriateness
- Roof Replace with gafroofing to fortifiedstandard
- Mineral wool insulation
- New siding from jameshardie
- Clad architectural windows from sunwindowsdoors
- Masonry repairs wither period appropriate mortar
- Mineral paint for the masonry by keim_usa
- Storm windows from quantastormwindows
- As well as a number of other details by our team and trade partners.

Address

401 S Blackwelder Avenue
Oklahoma City, OK
73108

Opening Hours

Monday 8am - 5pm
Tuesday 8am - 5pm
Wednesday 8am - 5pm
Thursday 8am - 5pm
Friday 8am - 4pm

Telephone

+14055499880

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