Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Burgman Building: Shop space work and other projects.

It has been days since a blog post but we have just been incredibly busy with restoration work that finding the time to blog about it has been difficult.

Right now we are making a push to get our main shop space ready. This has involved the usual detective work of paint analysis and figuring out just how the space will work. We now know the original colors in the space and have embarked on the process to paint the shop interior as well as showcase our talents. The schoolhouse green walls needed to go!

Certain things are a given and some things we have found out. The wonderful shellacked bead board is original and will be retained. We also know that there was a picture hanging rail that was 16 inches below the ceiling based on where nail patterns were. We also know that the trim at the very top was gilded so it seems likely that the hanging rail was fold as well. This would mean there was some sort of stenciled frieze at the top. The wall color was a golden tan and there is evidence that suggests that a clay color was used as a banding above the beaded board and below than hanging rail.

So we have come up with a 'panel' design  for the walls with the gold as the main wall color and clay as banging. This will then likely be stenciled  and some line work done. Artwork for sale will be hung just like it would have been done in the day from drop down wires that the artwork will hand from. It also means we don't have to put holes in the plaster anymore.

On the south wall we have two round windows. These let in excellent light into the space but lack and sort of finish trim around them. Our thought is to follow the circular pattern with the same banding using on the panels but I first must address getting some sort of proper trim on the inside. These windows actually pivoted out to let air in but obviously leaked over the years and the plaster on the inside, (over brick) has been repaired many times and they are not perfectly round. Creating curved trims is highly impractical so I will have to come up with a workable solution.  Eventually, I plan on stained glass in these openings.

With any restoration and in spite of your plans things pop up and one of them was the side street planting bed. In this case it was an overgrown mess where  a "street tree"  had died and was removed and little had been done.  Someone had tried to do a planting bed at one point  as was evidenced by some stone thrown around it . It was overgrown and was source of maintenance and needed to be addressed. While we mowed the street strip this are would require continuous weeding so we decided to address it

A few hours later we had pulled out all the stone evened it up to make it rectangular and we transplanted some day lilies from the back  of the lot  (under trees and so shady they didn't ever bloom). Its a start, and we will plant some other things in there but it looks a lot better.

More to come as I find the time!


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