Restoration involves process as much as product.

My jack plane awash in poplar shavings

In this post, we’ll examine the making of a reproduction 19th century door casing using traditional techniques and hand tools. The northern Vermont home we’re working in dates from the 1820s. It is a small farmhouse built in what architectural historians might call “vernacular” style, meaning a building derived from local traditions and materials. Functionality dominated the design decisions that went into creating these type of buildings, as opposed to fashion and current high style, though they too had their place.

The woodwork in any hand-built house is always an ideal place to see these design decisions played out in wood and nails. The carpenters that built this early American home were limited to local materials, tools and time when finishing out the interior, and decided on using a simple quirk edge bead detail to dress up the flat planed trim. On the doorways, the bead ran around in the inner edge of 4″ wide pine trim. This quick and simple detail could be made on site, and it provided a crisp shadow line on the trim while also preventing splintering of the exposed edge.

19th century beading plane and its work

Rounded iron in my jack plane

The trim boards were sawed to dimension then their faces planed smooth with a jack plane. These medium-sized planes of 12-15″ in length were made of beech wood in the 1820s and featured a rounded iron or cutting blade for efficient and rapid removal of wood. The quirk bead was then applied to the board edge with a molding plane. These narrow, wood-bodied planes hold irons specially shaped to cut certain profiles from beads to rounds to window muntins. The trim boards were then cut to fit the door and window frames and applied with long cut nails.

This restoration of the formal parlor to its 1820s appearance is an ongoing project that has involved removal of 150+ years of building strata to uncover what remained of the original trimwork. We’ll focus on other aspects of this work in upcoming posts, but let’s delve into the recreation of some door casings to replace originals that, unfortunately, did not survive 185 years of service.

For the new casings, I’ve chosen rough-cut poplar. It’s easy to tool and shape, resists splintering, is relatively clear and knot-free, and also fairly priced. By starting with rough-cut lumber I’m able to match the thickness of the original trim boards, which is 1-full inch. Not 7/8″. Not 3/4″. No. It’s a whole damn inch. And the difference between that old inch and the new “inch”, by which dimensional lumber is sold, makes all the difference. This is one of the reasons old woodwork is so much more striking and dynamic than fresh trim from the Home Depot. This difference is exactly what separates a preservation carpenter from Joe handyman swinging a hammer in your old home. But I digress.

After trimming the rough boards to width, I used a Stanley jack plane with a rounded iron to smooth the faces. This is probably one of my favorite activities, planing a smooth board and watching curl after curl of wood fly from the mouth of the plane. When finished, the plane leaves a slightly rippled appearance to the boards. These ripples, which can be seen under many layers of paint, are often the hallmark of historic woodwork in many old houses made by hand. I then applied the quirk bead to the board edge using a 19th century beading plane selected to perfectly match the dimensions of the original beading plane.

Shaving the bead off the top casing

The original door casings are cut in such a way that the top piece nests between the two uprights. To recreate this I have to shave the edge bead off at 45 degrees on the uprights, and cut the bead off both ends of the top piece where it meets the uprights. Easier seen in photographs than explained, this was done using a wood chisel and angle guide clamped to the trim board. The uprights were cut and installed first to provide measurements for the top piece, which was then cut and trimmed to fit. I attached the casings with set finish nails, and when filled and sanded smooth, these will become invisible under paint.

While taking the time to finish a door by hand from rough stock in this manner is labor intensive, in a faithful restoration process recreation is just as valid a goal as product replication. In fact, one could argue that the two are inseparable. Just as the electric miter saw marks and wire finish nails give away the modern concessions I made in this trim project, the wood carries the mark of its maker and cannot tell a lie.

Reproduction casing on original frame

Original historic door casing for comparison

Good fences make good fences.

Consider this: For $325 in materials you can buy a flimsy, pre-assembled 3-section fence riddled with knot holes and supported on undersized posts that is guaranteed to start leaning over before the white stain you spent all afternoon applying to it has dried. And then it still costs a day’s labor to install it.

Or you can spend $325 on materials and have a fence like this:

I swear the bend in the corner post is a figment of my camera's imagination

Supported on 8″ square pressure treated posts, this fence is constructed of shiplap pine boards on pressure treated stretchers topped with a 2′ spindle section made with robust 1.5″ spindles perfect for supporting grape vines or deterring would-be fence climbers. With a treatment of protective oil or oil-based stain every few years, this fence should last for quite a long time. While the labor cost involved with this fence is slightly higher than that of a pre-assembled fence, the quality, craftsmanship and superior aesthetics more than makeup for the increased cost. Keep in mind that the $325 estimate for the premade fence was the bargain basement cost. Estimates from fence companies for higher quality versions, comparable to what I built, came in at $600+ just for the fence sections and posts, not including installation!

Floating chimneys and the magic of summer kitchens

Wouldn't you like to come home to this?

Summer kitchens have to be one of my favorite architectural features in old residential buildings. In the old saying “Big house, little house, back house, barn” summer kitchens usually occupy the “little house” space. These are wings or ells off the main house that historically were used as kitchens, but frequently have been downgraded to woodsheds, mud rooms or, worse, garages. Because these rooms were built to house large wood or coal cookstoves that continuously belch heat, they almost always have plenty of ventilation and natural light from numerous windows and doorways. And if you’re really lucky, they’ll still have original cabinets or an old iron sink for restoring.

A 1992 photo of the summer kitchen with full chimney

Such was the case with this post-and-beam summer kitchen in northeast Vermont. Attached to a circa 1835 Cape Style farmhouse, this kitchen wing actually predates the main house and was constructed anywhere from 1810-1825. Originally this 15′ x 16′ room functioned as the sole house during the early years of the farm, but was converted to a summer kitchen sometime in the mid 1800s. When I first saw the summer kitchen it was in awful shape, with listing floors, punky sill beams, and frigidly cold from the lack of a full basement and insulation. Before I could do any interior work or restoration, a timber frame specialist had to be brought in to address the foundation and rot. The wing was put on steel beams while a full concrete walled basement was dug and poured. Three of the four sills were carefully removed and replaced with new locally cut Tamarack sills (very rot resistant) and the foundation was topped off with restoration brick above grade to give the new foundation a traditional appearance.

What remained of the old chimney 15 years later.

One remarkable feature of this summer kitchen was the “floating chimney” of which only a stub in the building’s garret remained. These floating chimneys are occasionally found in northern New England, usually in country houses, and were built to save floor space versus a conventional chimney that extends to grade. These were constructed on heavy planks that rested on the second floor ceiling timbers and had a thimble that accepted a stove pipe from the appliance on the first floor. While this may seem like a lot of weight to put on the structure, when a building this small is constructed out of 8″ square virgin pine timbers, to say it’s overbuilt is a bit of an understatement. In this case, the client wanted the summer kitchen to be completely restored, and that included the floating chimney. Needless to say, I was thrilled.

Outside wall with plaster finish prior to new chimney

Once the foundation work was complete, demolition inside the summer kitchen could commence. All of the 1930s wallboard was removed to expose the frame, and fiberglass batt insulation was installed. The former board ceiling was removed to expose the pine beams and transform the space into a cathedral ceiling. Roof insulation was badly needed, but the exposed wide pine sheathing boards were a great aesthetic, some being over 18″ wide. The solution was to tar paper the roof, apply rigid foam insulation between 2x4s attached atop the rafters, then apply a new layer of plywood sheathing to support the ice and water shield, cedar breather and finally the red cedar shingle roof. A lot of work, but definitely worth it on those -25 degree nights.

Finished floor and chimney wih wood stove installed

Inside, the old shellacked trim was rehung, and new wallboard was put up. Rather than tape the joints, I applied a coat of sanded finish plaster to create a warmer, hand crafted and more historically accurate look to simulate a traditional plaster finish. We sanded the old wavy-grained yellow birch floor, and finished it with a traditional oil-based varnish. To support the future wood stove, I sunk a slate tile floor flush with the wood floor, grouted it and sealed it with a beeswax topcoat. And now the chimney…

Two 4″ thick hemlock planks were selected as the chimney base, a structural improvement over the previous foundation. These stretched between the end girt and first ceiling joist closest to the outside wall. A 2″ thick granite slab slightly larger than the eventual chimney dimension was selected as the chimney base to provide a fire-proof and solid stop between the wood and masonry. While I am not a trained mason, and do not advertise masonry work, I was cajoled into building this chimney after the mason I had subcontracted with showed up to the job intoxicated and everyone else I contacted wanted way too much money to touch it. I laid the chimney using restoration brick, which is smaller, water struck and more irregular than standard brick, and a soft lime-based mortar. I lined the chimney with a stainless steel continuous liner insulated with vermiculite. Above the roof, the chimney was flashed with lead, and finished off with a cement mortar cap.

The finished chimney prior to trimming the flue liner

But the real chimney magic happened on the inside. After a long search, I finally found an old porcelain enameled wood cookstove large enough for a kitchen this size, and of the period the client was looking for (early 20th century, this one happened to be fairly late for a cookstove, circa 1945). To be specific, the model was made by the Home Comfort company out of St. Louis, MO and it came out of a local cape house much like this one. After wrestling that polar bear into the kitchen and positioning it properly, I used double-walled stove pipe to connect the stove up to the brick chimney. Opening the damper and lighting the stove for the first time in its new home was such a thrill! And the best part of the story is that this is no show piece. This old stove not only heats the kitchen all winter, but cooks all the client’s meals year round, other than on the hottest dog days of summer. The wood cookstove, cathedral ceiling, floating chimney and restored cabinets (post about this coming soon) all combine to create what is probably the most unique and one of the most welcoming and warm kitchens I’ve ever experienced. And I the joy of playing the central role in creating/recreating a space a joyous and rich as this is what gives me great fulfillment through my work.

A mailbox post your grandfather would be proud of

It’s late afternoon. You come down the dirt road to your farmhouse, and there it is lying with its head in the wet ditch; your mailbox. You park your car and let your forehead hit the steering wheel. You knew it was just a matter of time for that rickety maple post left you stuck in the mud. You had watched it sway ominously each morning when the Rural Free Delivery driver pried open that lid and crammed more supermarket fliers inside. You winced with each passing snowplow, sneaking furtive glances out your kitchen window to see it slapped with snow yet still remain upright. But not today. Today entropy and rot cut your connection with the greater world off at the knees. Knowing you must rebuild, you wonder how to make a mailbox post better than the rest, a post that will stop the cycle of soggy spring mail and disgruntled postal workers, a post your grandfather would be proud of.

This was the situation we came in to solve recently and this was our solution.

We built this post out of 6″x6″ true dimensional Tamarack. We picked 6″x6″ lumber because it was huge, fit the existing mailbox nicely and is larger in diameter than any baseball bat I’ve ever seen. Tamarack made sense because it grows locally, is super tough, and just about as rot resistant a softwood as there is. Then we hand-planed all the lumber using a jack plane with a rounded iron for rough work. This way it would look take paint well and give the finished post an antique hand-tooled look.

Then we measured and marked the pieces for cutting and joinery. Usually mailbox posts have the triangular truss portion on the backside of the main post rather than the front as this one does. But, we wanted the mailbox to stick way out from the post so we could set it as far back from the road as possible to make way for the 6′ tall snowbanks around these parts. To compensate for its extended nature over the road, we made sure to design the post extra long so a full 3′ of it would extend into the earth.

The lap joints were cut with a saw and chisel, and the post assembled with 5.5″ coated decking screws. We dug the hole, planted the post (somehow a concrete footing seemed like overkill), and laid on some nice alkyd primer before two coats of 5-alarm fire red paint. The plow trucks should see that one coming! And of course, as the cherry on top, no mailbox this awesome would be complete without patriotic bunting.

Now it just needs one of those black plywood cowboy silhouettes leaned up against it.

new “old” bath renovation

The finished bath ready for a good handscrubbing or facewashing

For this project we started with a completely gutted, rather small second floor bathroom in an 1860s Second Empire Style home. The client desired a traditional look to the bath that would blend with and compliment the interior of his Victorian. The finished full-bath features an antique clawfoot tub with tiled shower enclosure, pedestal sink, traditional white oak flooring, bead-board wainscoting, veneer plaster wall finish, and polished nickel plumbing and lighting fixtures throughout.

The centerpiece of this bathroom is by far the 1930s Kohler porcelain enameled cast iron clawfoot tub set in a marble and white porcelain subway tiled surround. While clawfoot tubs are very visually appealing, many people are loath to shower in them due to the universal clammy vinyl shower liner tucked into all sides of the tub to prevent errant water from escaping. However, in this design, (we invented it and it’s the only like it we’ve heard of) the problems of rogue water and suffocating shower curtains are eliminated by placing the tub in a full tiled surround with separate floor and tub drains. This allows the one cotton curtain to hang on the exterior of the tub, while any water that hits the curtain or tile walls flows into the floor drain. Feedback on this design has been very positive, with the client reporting that it is very effective at keeping water where it belongs, is a pleasure to both bathe and shower in and is also quite a unique setting to start each morning.

This bathroom illustrates wonderfully that size does not have to conflict luxury and comfort.

Let’s have a look at the making of this bathroom:

Wainscoting primed and drywall up.

Tub surround waiting for second thinset pour on floor and taping of the wall joints.

Tub set in the tile surround. What a tight fit!

Upper half of completed tile surround and reproduction schoolhouse type globe fixture.

Wainscot trim and plaster painted, waiting for sink.

The finished tub with polished nickel fixture and exposed shower riser.