Working away at the Burgman Building: Stencilling and murals

First post of 2017 and we plan on getting back on track on postings as we know those of you following the  restore want to know what is going on. We also plan on bringing back our Antique of the Week and more Preservation articles. Of course we still are completing end of year stuff  so we are very busy. We had a great holiday and were very pleased with shop sales.

Upstairs we are working on the "big hallway". Over 50 feet long and 4 ft wide with 12 ft tall ceilings it is more that a way to get to the front formal rooms it is an opportunity to showcase Victorian style and design. One of the key things about this hall is a curved wall that transitions from the  top of the stairs area to the long hall leading to the Parlors and formal dining rooms. This curved wall is the perfect location for an piece of art and true to the period and our love of the Aesthetic Movement we have decided a Crane scene with stream is appropriate . This design was common in high end entries such as the now gone Lux mansion in San Francisco which had similar curved wall. Far from done with it but I'm beginning to get a feel for how this will look.

Another design decision is what to do with the woodwork? We know that the wood was originally faux grained but the last owner had taken all the trims off has it stripped, this raised the grain and had to be sanded. More importantly he had not labeled anything and we spent weeks getting the door trims back to the doors that they belonged to. Also the baseboard has not been taken off and was painted . Removal of the curved baseboard (based on our experience) would have been ill advised We decided to do an ebonized wood treatment and a Herter Bros theme gilded stencil, again following the principals of the Aesthetic Movement.

To this end we chose  a design based on some inlays used in a Herter Bros piece we sold several years ago. We have a total of five doorways and one window to do, so its an on-going project.

We have not forgotten the downstairs and we are now working on the upper frieze stencil in the shop space too.

So there is a lot going on and more updates will be coming sooner than later.

Burgman Building Restore: More Frescos and Landscape restoration continues

Well you know me, never satisfied. It kept bugging me that the ceiling in the Garland Parlor seemed too simple given the artistry on display elsewhere. The simple blue sky seemed well, just too simple, so off on another 'investigation.  In looking at the ceiling the paint seemed thicker in one corner and dental picks and blades in hand I began to carefully check the crackling that was evident in that area and well...as they say...here we go again.

As I suspected there was a top bordered wall design panels, It has a floral theme similar to the frieze. Still more conservation work to do, but it looks like I can get enough to create pattern that will allow me to replicate this detail. It appears they had a paint failure in the ceiling at some point, maybe a leak and the ceiling was scraped and the blue ceiling put on, for whatever reason , laziness perhaps, the painter didn't scrape one corner which  probably had firmly attached paint , or MAYBE they felt someday someone might come along to restore/recreate this feature?

So now we have another project.

Meantime outside we have been busy transplanting flowers and bused and starting the fence install around the area where the vegetable garden will be. We plan on replacing the brick edging with stone.

We also added a dry creek with a dry well under it because we are installing gutters on the carriage garage which will direct water away from the side wall of the garage.

Busy times around here.

"Blue Sky" Garland Room, The Burgman Building Restoration

As we remove the latex we are able to see some of the ceiling

While winter is upon us, we have been working diligently away on the upstairs rooms of the residence. One of the rooms of primary concern is of course the Garland Room, This is the main reception room of the residence and was the are where normal guests might have been met and entertained. The grand Persian Parlor probably reserved only for the 'best guests" lay beyond  a pair of double doors, alas missing, though it is my hope to locater suitable replacements or we will do an elegant portiere treatment.

This shows the size of the frieze

This room is nicknamed the "door room". for a relatively small room 12x12 square and opens to four other spaces (and it has a window opening) so actual wall space is limited. As a result the artisan who dis the painting focused the eye upward in an attempt to visually expand the space. A "garland' of flowers and leaves, a Frieze that extends a little more than two feet down. There is a small gilded strip of wood used as a handing rail at the top.

Fine artistry is evident

The question always has been what did the ceiling look like? The "decorators" that owned the building for several years elected to paint the walls up to the frieze in a rather haphazard fashion using a color not that close to the original green of the wall. The ceiling they simply scraped and painted. FORTUNATELY they did  a crappy job and  parts of the original painted ceiling are intact under a layer of cheap latex paint.

Can you believe ANYONE would do this, much less someone 'claiming' to be a decorator?

This room suffered the additional indignity of having a closet built in it and Lattice work hung from the ceiling, "designing hillbillies" comes to mind every time I recall the arduous task of removing this hanging "decorator" mess.

So after some careful removals of the latex  we know more than we did. 1.) The ceiling was treated to a blue sky treatment. 2.) There was circular floral band  of smaller delicate flowers about 3 1/2 feet in. and 3.) There was a center plaster ceiling medallion that was 26 inches across. 4) There was a chair rail at 34 inches and a small border of flowers above and below it. 5.) The wall below the chair rail  was painted a darker green color

Now we have to decide how best to proceed. We maybe have 20 percent of the ceiling paint intact and the thought is to conserve it, and in paint the rest. We will reinstall the chair rail and restore the floral design, re-gild the small hanging rail and lastly try to find what we think would be compatible ceiling medallion in the same size.  At least we have a conservation plan.

Burgman Building: Expansion at Last and some special finds

Rear showroom open

Its been 'Hectic' to say the least but we have the rear showroom open. Lots of finish details but those will have to wait until after the holiday shopping season.

As is common with this historic building there is always a discovery or two. We knew that there were originally murals throughout the saloon , but prior owners had virtually sanded history way as part of the their "renovations" at least up to  the dropped ceiling which of course we removed almost  the week we bought the building. And as we removed some newer flaking paint, this brought us at least a 'tease' of what was once there in a space 10 feet or so up:

Framework around murals

Landscape murals

So we now know that there were intact landscape murals AND we know they had painted frame designs and more importantly that there was a decorative stencil frieze going all around the room.

Frieze border detail

This provides us with a "baseline" but short of finding some original photos we may never know what the saloon decorations looked like. We are working now on digital enhancements to recreate the original stencil frieze design and will likely add it to our other historic stencil offerings.