With the days getting shorter and the exterior trim on the house getting more weathered, we decided to tackle the most vulnerable features of the exterior before the weather changes.
Jim is working primarily on the porch and I’m working primarily on the bay window. In the course of our first efforts, we kept running into the same wood molding used in various ways… a versatile rabbeted design intended for panel and base molding.
It’s all secured with square nails and when it is necessary to temporarily remove some pieces, we take care to re-use the nails when the pieces are replaced. It’s going to be time-consuming, but fun and eventually beautiful.
Similar molding profiles were offered by most millworks in the 1880’s — they were popular for decades. Molding number 467 in the upper right corner appears to be identical to the molding profile used liberally around the house, both inside and out. Image source: Roberts & Co. Millwork catalog courtesy of archive.org
On our first visit to the house I was captivated by the way the molding served as a back band for the door casings and then continued onto the baseboards to serve as a cap, and took this photo. Most intriguing is how on the left side of the door, the casing wraps onto the adjacent wall; the carpenter wanted the door to have that molding all around the casing even if there really wasn’t enough room on one side to allow for it! That extra bit of effort gave the door much more dignity and substance.
Outside, the same molding was used to detail the outside corners by placing two pieces of it back-to-back between window casings (and the panels above and below them).
The same molding appears on the porch supports. Here it is seen beneath the cap of the pedestal base, under flaking blue paint. Below that, the base of the pedestal has been patched and modified numerous times in failed efforts to reinforce it. The added layers of rectangular trim likely made the problem worse by trapping moisture.
On the side porch, our favorite molding still serves here as a cap for the plinth. I removed layers of rectangular trim (like the stuff added on the front porch) to reveal the intended appearance (the “ghost” of the aforementioned trim is still visible on the concrete floor). This plinth is now the correct shape and size, but is itself a replacement (note crude butt joints and round nails).
The ubiquitous molding profile appears again on the lower part of the capital on each porch support. It appears that the flanking Gothic brackets were installed after the capital moldings were attached; the bracket corners are cut near the quatrefoil piercings to avoid interfering with the capitals.
A similar, but not identical, bracket of Gothic design is seen in this millwork catalog selection. Were the porch supports ordered from a catalog or were they made on site by a carpenter?
Because of the molding used on the capital, pedestal cap and base I am inclined to think that the porch supports were possibly made on site. But they were surely designed elsewhere; I doubt that any of the locals in 1885 could come up with a design like that independently. My guess is that the vine tracery which graces the porch supports is from a published source (Downing? Davis?) or that it was ordered from a millwork company catalog.
Which brings up another question… who designed the house itself? Is it a plan book design or influenced by one?
Image source: 1888 Carlton and Foster Co. millwork catalog courtesy of archive.org
The porch supports have been deteriorating for some time. Things got a little shakier when a vehicle used to remove the former owner’s possessions backed into the porch (no; neither Jim nor I had anything to do with that)! Jim braced the porch and removed affected portions. They will go to our workshop to be given lots of TLC.
The rot hidden by the multiple layers of new base molding is quite evident here. Jim will build new bases identical to the originals.
Hideous vinyl soffit pieces were removed to reveal the actual soffit and its advanced state of decay. Vinyl doesn’t fix problems, it just hides them and allows them to get worse.
Also suffering from neglect is the bay window which, fortunately, was not wrapped in stifling vinyl. This is the west side of the bay. I’m going to start on the east and work my way around, one section at a time. Each section will be primed as I finish it so that no wood will be left vulnerable to further weathering.
I started with the center panel to get an idea of what’s involved and just how bad it will be. I’ll do the small panel (below) and the cornice section (above) on another day(s).
First, I scrape off all of the loose paint. I’m intentionally leaving the secure paint attached for two reasons: 1) it retains much of the historic record for any theoretical future historians and 2) I believe that the accumulated layers of paint offer an authentic patina which can not be realized when paint is entirely removed. The bay will then look as if it has just been well-maintained through the course of time rather than appearing over-restored.
This photo shows the large gap between the panel molding and the adjacent stile… that will have to be dealt with.
I remove the panel molding to clean it. Both the panel and the surrounding molding had built-up globs of paint which were preventing the molding from laying flat.
This is the bottom molding. It’s similar to the molding seen on the porches and inside on woodwork, but has a flattened area rather than a bulbous bullnose. I’ve sanded the piece lightly in preparation for applications of wood hardener and primer. All the paint had already come off of it due to weathering.
Clean and free of gunk, the moldings are reattached using their original square nails. When they went back on they bit into new holes — making everything align they way it was intended (because things have subtly shifted since 1885). The freshly (and lightly) sanded exposed wood is then saturated with a wood hardener prior to priming.
The primer highlights the nail holes and slight gaps that remain. These are filled with caulk prior to touch-up priming.
Much better. There are a few spots that are too big to be filled with caulk. These areas of rot were exacerbated by the vinyl installation. They will be filled with epoxy and shaped before painting. For now, everything will be white. The fun colors won’t begin for a year or two. There is lots of research to do! I’m not certain, but from what I could see while scraping it appears that the original colors on the bay included yellow on the flat areas and dark green on the moldings. Hopefully I will find more information when I start scraping the cornice area.
Detail of metal shingles in the gable ends. I’ve not seen this pattern before, so was some what intrigued with them. They are the one feature of the house that I am not completely in love with; they strike me as stylized trees, perhaps being abducted by a spacecraft. They just don’t scream “1880’s” to me. Yet they are from the 1880’s, so I will learn to love them. Perhaps it’s the blue that annoys me. Paint will help.
The same or similar steel shingle seen here, though shown in a different (staggered) configuration.
The notation at top reads “Patented April 1883 and November 1885”
Maybe the ones on the house would look better if the carpenter had had installed them like this instead… I guess people screwed up back then, too. It’s sort of like when porch lamps or doors are installed upside down — something that happens all too frequently today.
Image source: Metallic Roofing Co. catalog courtesy of archive.org.
the trim on this house seems to be above its station or place in life. the wavy insert in the porch post for example is pretty exotic stuff for your end of town and that odd gable over the porch and those metal embossed shingles. wtf is really going on here. was it the owners or was the carpenter born in a house in the lee of the Beaux Arts building in Paris?
I’ve been looking for the source of the porch design. I haven’t found it yet, but the porch of the Reuel E. Smith House, designed by Alexander Jackson Davis, sports a similar design done in iron. The ornament there is said to represent oak leaves and acorns, but the wavy branch is very similar to the wavy vine on our new project. I’m guessing that it was inspired by the work of Davis, Downing or someone of that caliber… I just need to find the wood version in a published work and connect the dots.
Good start! This will be a really cool project. I am looking forward to the wood hardener stage. I have some windows that I need to give some love to, and will appreciate the advice. What a great little house!
I’ve used Abatron products in the past with great results and we’ll be using them here, too. Jim is about to use their wood consolidant (hardener) on the rotted portion of the porch posts… your windows will love the stuff!
I look forward to following your progress on this charming house. I wish I had the skills to restore old homes like this, but in lieu of that I enjoy reading about other people doing it. I think yellow and green is a nice color palette, too; earthy, fitting the scheme preference you mentioned in the previous post.
The yellow and green scheme is definitely going to be given serious consideration. Yesterday I scraped and primed the small panel below this one; it appears that perhaps a third color was used on the lower section of the bay window. More scraping on other sections will be required to sort it all out, but the exterior may have originally been more colorful than I first imagined. I may be looking at a layer of old primer, too, so it is too soon to draw a definite conclusion. Glad you can share in the adventure!
So many cute bits and such on this house. Your feelings about the shingles remind me of how I felt about the ugly (yet valuable) entry tile in our vestibule. I call it ugly/beautiful. I would never choose it for my home, but I would also never remove it because it is part of the history fo the house.
I am anxious to see what is under that faux siding! It looks like the installers took the lazy route and used edge channeling everywhere, rather than just hacking bits away to make it fit…. This may work out great for you.
“Ugly/Beautiful” fits the steel shingles here like a glove! I’m also anxious to see what is under the vinyl siding but we will likely wait until next year to find out. I think that we can thank the previous owner for the survival of exterior brackets, etc.; there was a limit to what she would allow the vinyl installers to tamper with. They did cut off all but one of the returns on the window’s cap moldings, however. We’ll be reproducing every one of them!
The edge channeling has allowed water infiltration in some spots so as curious as I am about what is under the vinyl, I am also very apprehensive and a little bit nervous.
Thanks! I’m still working on the bay window, but had to take a break when a bout of sciatica flared up. I’ll be back soon to finish the repairs and priming. I learn a lot from your posts, too!
You wrote: “I believe that the accumulated layers of paint offer an authentic patina which can not be realized when paint is entirely removed.”
I protest!
I protest!
To me, it’s vital when restoring an old house to remove all the old paint down to bare wood. Otherwise, no matter the quality of the restoration, the exterior cannot regain the original “crispy” look common in black/white images of, say, a Victorina-era house when new.
These valuable image reveal a shimmering quality to the painted surfaces which old, alligatored paint cannot achieve.
If you want to leave old paint for future historians, you could leave alone a small vertical section of old paint, but there’s no need to leave an entire house “eroded” by caked-on paint.
Yes, I appreciate that few people will undertake such a task but, IMO, it makes a world of difference.
If “crispy” is the goal, then your approach is the correct one! That is not the goal of all preservationists, however; philosophical perspectives on the matter have varied in the past and will no doubt vary in the future.
“Crispy” was the goal at Colonial Williamsburg when restoration efforts first began in the late 1920’s. For decades structures at the historic site were crispy, polished and refined. Finally someone figured out that the town of Williamsburg never really looked that perfect in the 18th century. Today, the historic site is still well-maintained, but not everything is crispy. Moss is allowed to grow on roofs, paint is allowed to peel, weeds are allowed to grow, etc. The site has a more authentic feel today.
I lost my fascination with “crispy” as a teen-aged preservationist when I was fortunate enough to have an aunt and uncle introduce me to several European countries. I was indelibly impressed with not only the great antiquity of European structures, but with the fact that buildings there were allowed to age. I was particularly fascinated by stone steps and stairs with treads which were deeply cupped after centuries of feet wearing away at them. Some of these steps were so revered and respected that iron grates had been placed on top of them to preserve the wear yet still allow for safe use. Not crispy at all, but beautiful, meaningful and highly memorable.
I stayed in hotels — some of them 500 years old or more — which proudly displayed uneven surfaces and patina of all sorts… none of it crispy save the windows which were typically very polished. I was fascinated by the stark contrast these beautiful places provided when compared to the American structures I had just left behind.
When my magical visit was over, I arrived back in the States with an entirely new perspective. The buildings I saw upon my return home all seemed newer, less substantial, and less interesting than the ones I had seen in Europe. They still do. It’s just a personal preference; I prefer the look that develops naturally over the passage of time to the look of a moment in time forever frozen.
Our goal with this house is not to have a crispy, freshly-minted, look but to retain the authentic patina which has been developing over the course of time from the various accumulated layers of multiple finishes. It’s simply one more approach out of many possible directions one may take when reviving an historic structure.
I, too, have traveled to Europe and visited ancient buildings. I have been in 500-year-old houses that are very clearly ancient and, yet, guess what? The front doors are often gleaming with fresh high-gloss paint with nary a ripple of old alligatored paint under!
I, too, have very old stone steps, worn with age and unlevel from settlement. And I love them AS IS.
I, too, have studied Colonial Williamsburg and applaud that the “perfect” look strived for during the early decades has given way to the more historically correct “worn” look of today. And why? Because Colonial Williamsburg belatedly realized that presenting the town as perfect was historically false. False being the operative word.
I think patina is vital. But, isn’t there a vast difference between patina and, ahh, age-related corrosion?
My 1894 house has 43 stained-glass windows. All were damaged, curvy from age, and replete with missing bits of glass. Should I have left these multi-colored treasures AS IS? I did not. Each has been fully restored to their original “crispy” condition and, in the process, they have been given another century of life.
Should I have left my crooked porch columns, their bases and capitals rotted, AS IS? I did not, as you did not with the columns on your sweet house.
Your window bay will entail a great deal of work to repair damage, missing bits, and alterations. You are OK with all these interventions to restore the bay to original condition yet you stop short of the final step: removing the last bits of old, alligatored paint. You justify this in the name of “patina”.
But you liked the way the exterior of my house in Topeka turned out! And I did the same thing there. I did not scrape the columns or window casings down to bare wood… I just scraped off the loose stuff, primed and painted.
The Cross House is exquisite in its crispiness, and I am not suggesting that you should not make it crispy. It’s just not the look I’m going for here… I like the built-up layers of paint on our house and am going to keep them where practical to do so. Someone else can always come along later and scrape it all off, but the ancient layers can never be added back once they are gone.
Let’s wait until I’m done painting in a year or two (or three) and you can judge the final result then. I think you’ll find it looks good… maybe even a tad crispy!
the trim on this house seems to be above its station or place in life. the wavy insert in the porch post for example is pretty exotic stuff for your end of town and that odd gable over the porch and those metal embossed shingles. wtf is really going on here. was it the owners or was the carpenter born in a house in the lee of the Beaux Arts building in Paris?
I’ve been looking for the source of the porch design. I haven’t found it yet, but the porch of the Reuel E. Smith House, designed by Alexander Jackson Davis, sports a similar design done in iron. The ornament there is said to represent oak leaves and acorns, but the wavy branch is very similar to the wavy vine on our new project. I’m guessing that it was inspired by the work of Davis, Downing or someone of that caliber… I just need to find the wood version in a published work and connect the dots.
Good start! This will be a really cool project. I am looking forward to the wood hardener stage. I have some windows that I need to give some love to, and will appreciate the advice. What a great little house!
I’ve used Abatron products in the past with great results and we’ll be using them here, too. Jim is about to use their wood consolidant (hardener) on the rotted portion of the porch posts… your windows will love the stuff!
Interesting! Looking forward to seeing the results!
I did well with the Abatron wood hardener diluted about 50/50 with acetone so it really soaks in.
Great tip, thanks! I can see how the acetone would really help absorption… we will definitely experiment with that!
I look forward to following your progress on this charming house. I wish I had the skills to restore old homes like this, but in lieu of that I enjoy reading about other people doing it. I think yellow and green is a nice color palette, too; earthy, fitting the scheme preference you mentioned in the previous post.
That bay window is amazing.
As always, thanks for posting.
The yellow and green scheme is definitely going to be given serious consideration. Yesterday I scraped and primed the small panel below this one; it appears that perhaps a third color was used on the lower section of the bay window. More scraping on other sections will be required to sort it all out, but the exterior may have originally been more colorful than I first imagined. I may be looking at a layer of old primer, too, so it is too soon to draw a definite conclusion. Glad you can share in the adventure!
Panel molding is very versatile!
So many cute bits and such on this house. Your feelings about the shingles remind me of how I felt about the ugly (yet valuable) entry tile in our vestibule. I call it ugly/beautiful. I would never choose it for my home, but I would also never remove it because it is part of the history fo the house.
I am anxious to see what is under that faux siding! It looks like the installers took the lazy route and used edge channeling everywhere, rather than just hacking bits away to make it fit…. This may work out great for you.
“Ugly/Beautiful” fits the steel shingles here like a glove! I’m also anxious to see what is under the vinyl siding but we will likely wait until next year to find out. I think that we can thank the previous owner for the survival of exterior brackets, etc.; there was a limit to what she would allow the vinyl installers to tamper with. They did cut off all but one of the returns on the window’s cap moldings, however. We’ll be reproducing every one of them!
The edge channeling has allowed water infiltration in some spots so as curious as I am about what is under the vinyl, I am also very apprehensive and a little bit nervous.
This is so interesting! I always learn a lot from your posts.
Thanks! I’m still working on the bay window, but had to take a break when a bout of sciatica flared up. I’ll be back soon to finish the repairs and priming. I learn a lot from your posts, too!
You wrote: “I believe that the accumulated layers of paint offer an authentic patina which can not be realized when paint is entirely removed.”
I protest!
I protest!
To me, it’s vital when restoring an old house to remove all the old paint down to bare wood. Otherwise, no matter the quality of the restoration, the exterior cannot regain the original “crispy” look common in black/white images of, say, a Victorina-era house when new.
These valuable image reveal a shimmering quality to the painted surfaces which old, alligatored paint cannot achieve.
If you want to leave old paint for future historians, you could leave alone a small vertical section of old paint, but there’s no need to leave an entire house “eroded” by caked-on paint.
Yes, I appreciate that few people will undertake such a task but, IMO, it makes a world of difference.
If “crispy” is the goal, then your approach is the correct one! That is not the goal of all preservationists, however; philosophical perspectives on the matter have varied in the past and will no doubt vary in the future.
“Crispy” was the goal at Colonial Williamsburg when restoration efforts first began in the late 1920’s. For decades structures at the historic site were crispy, polished and refined. Finally someone figured out that the town of Williamsburg never really looked that perfect in the 18th century. Today, the historic site is still well-maintained, but not everything is crispy. Moss is allowed to grow on roofs, paint is allowed to peel, weeds are allowed to grow, etc. The site has a more authentic feel today.
I lost my fascination with “crispy” as a teen-aged preservationist when I was fortunate enough to have an aunt and uncle introduce me to several European countries. I was indelibly impressed with not only the great antiquity of European structures, but with the fact that buildings there were allowed to age. I was particularly fascinated by stone steps and stairs with treads which were deeply cupped after centuries of feet wearing away at them. Some of these steps were so revered and respected that iron grates had been placed on top of them to preserve the wear yet still allow for safe use. Not crispy at all, but beautiful, meaningful and highly memorable.
I stayed in hotels — some of them 500 years old or more — which proudly displayed uneven surfaces and patina of all sorts… none of it crispy save the windows which were typically very polished. I was fascinated by the stark contrast these beautiful places provided when compared to the American structures I had just left behind.
When my magical visit was over, I arrived back in the States with an entirely new perspective. The buildings I saw upon my return home all seemed newer, less substantial, and less interesting than the ones I had seen in Europe. They still do. It’s just a personal preference; I prefer the look that develops naturally over the passage of time to the look of a moment in time forever frozen.
Our goal with this house is not to have a crispy, freshly-minted, look but to retain the authentic patina which has been developing over the course of time from the various accumulated layers of multiple finishes. It’s simply one more approach out of many possible directions one may take when reviving an historic structure.
We are talking apples and oranges.
I, too, have traveled to Europe and visited ancient buildings. I have been in 500-year-old houses that are very clearly ancient and, yet, guess what? The front doors are often gleaming with fresh high-gloss paint with nary a ripple of old alligatored paint under!
I, too, have very old stone steps, worn with age and unlevel from settlement. And I love them AS IS.
I, too, have studied Colonial Williamsburg and applaud that the “perfect” look strived for during the early decades has given way to the more historically correct “worn” look of today. And why? Because Colonial Williamsburg belatedly realized that presenting the town as perfect was historically false. False being the operative word.
I think patina is vital. But, isn’t there a vast difference between patina and, ahh, age-related corrosion?
My 1894 house has 43 stained-glass windows. All were damaged, curvy from age, and replete with missing bits of glass. Should I have left these multi-colored treasures AS IS? I did not. Each has been fully restored to their original “crispy” condition and, in the process, they have been given another century of life.
Should I have left my crooked porch columns, their bases and capitals rotted, AS IS? I did not, as you did not with the columns on your sweet house.
Your window bay will entail a great deal of work to repair damage, missing bits, and alterations. You are OK with all these interventions to restore the bay to original condition yet you stop short of the final step: removing the last bits of old, alligatored paint. You justify this in the name of “patina”.
But you liked the way the exterior of my house in Topeka turned out! And I did the same thing there. I did not scrape the columns or window casings down to bare wood… I just scraped off the loose stuff, primed and painted.
The Cross House is exquisite in its crispiness, and I am not suggesting that you should not make it crispy. It’s just not the look I’m going for here… I like the built-up layers of paint on our house and am going to keep them where practical to do so. Someone else can always come along later and scrape it all off, but the ancient layers can never be added back once they are gone.
Let’s wait until I’m done painting in a year or two (or three) and you can judge the final result then. I think you’ll find it looks good… maybe even a tad crispy!