Updating a 1920s Spanish house without losing its soul

A 1920s Spanish house in Los Angeles usually arrives with a little of everything: thick plaster walls, arched doorways, a tiled bath in colors nobody would pick today, and a kitchen that has been redone two or three times since. The question most owners end up asking is not whether to update it, but how to do it so the house still feels like itself afterward.

There's no single right answer. It's your house. These are ideas that designers, restorers and preservation guides keep coming back to, offered as a starting point rather than a checklist. If you're new to the style, our guide to Spanish homes in LA covers the history.

Start with what's original

Before choosing finishes, it helps to sort the house into three piles: what's original, what's old but not original, and what's recent. Original plaster, arches, built-ins, wood floors, tile, ironwork and windows tend to carry the character, and they're the hardest things to get back once they're gone. A good contractor or preservation architect can usually tell you which is which in an afternoon.

Plaster and stucco

Smooth or hand-troweled plaster is a big part of how these houses look and feel. A few things preservation guides stress:

• Fix the water first. The National Park Service's Preservation Brief 22 recommends sorting out roofs, gutters, flashing and drainage before any stucco repair, since water is usually the cause.
• Patch, don't strip. The same brief favors patching over wholesale replacement, matching the original mix and texture, and warns that caulk isn't a proper crack repair.
• Hire the specialist. Matching old plaster takes trial samples and a skilled plasterer.

Inside, decorative plaster can be copied rather than lost. On This Old House's 1933 Silver Lake project, the crew traced original ornament, cut templates and piped new plaster to match the profile.

Tile

Original tile is often the most personal part of a Spanish house, and sometimes the most dated. Some ideas:

• Keep a bath as a period piece. If one bath has intact original tile, restoring it and modernizing the others is a common middle path.
• Reproduce the pattern, not the wear. When original tile can't be saved, the This Old House team reproduced the old border pattern with handmade restoration tile and used simpler modern tile elsewhere to control cost.
• Use materials the style already knows. Recent LA renovations covered by Dwell pair smooth plaster with Saltillo, Talavera and zellige, and keep original Saltillo floors where they survive.

Arches, floors and built-ins

Arched openings, coved ceilings, wood floors and built-in cabinets are the bones of the interior. A 1931 Los Feliz house featured in Dwell kept its original curved archways and built-ins and refinished the hardwood, while the baths got new tile and Venetian plaster. Opening up walls for a modern plan is possible, but in these houses the arches often define the rooms, so it's worth knowing what you'd be giving up.

Kitchens and baths

Few 1920s kitchens survive intact, so the kitchen is usually where an owner has the most freedom. Many renovations aim for a kitchen that feels plausible for the house, with plaster or tile walls, wood or painted cabinets and simple hardware, rather than a showroom kitchen dropped into a 1920s shell. Others go fully modern and let the contrast speak. Both are real choices.

Windows and doors

Original wood or steel casement windows are a defining feature. Specialists can often repair, reglaze and weatherstrip them, and that's worth pricing before you replace. The same goes for original front doors, hardware and decorative ironwork.

Check the rules first

Many 1920s Spanish houses sit in Historic Preservation Overlay Zones, including parts of Hancock Park and other older neighborhoods. Generally, an HPOZ reviews exterior work visible from the street, and interior changes that don't alter the exterior are typically exempt, as the Miracle Mile HPOZ explains. Moving a window or door can count as exterior work. Each HPOZ has its own preservation plan, so verify with the city's Office of Historic Resources before you design. Other cities, like Beverly Hills and Pasadena, have their own historic rules.

If you're looking at a Spanish house, I'll pull the permit history, any historic designation and the inspection reports so you know what's original before you plan a thing.

General information, not advice. Price figures are estimates from public data and may be out of date.