Tag Archives: Historic Preservation

Blacksmithing, General Information, Historic Places, Masonry, Masonry Techniques, Museum, NBSS, Preservation, Teaching, Timber Framing

2013 BAC Traditional Building Intensive

August 21, 2013 @TheRainford Leave a comment

Most people relax on their summer vacation. After a day on a beach I get antsy and need to keep moving, exploring and building. For the second year in a row I spent my vacation last week sharing my passion for the craft by teaching the 8 day intensive that is part of the semester long ‘Traditional Building’ class I teach at the Boston Architectural College (BAC) in association with the North Bennett Street School.

The class is part of the low residency Master’s Degree in Historic Preservation at the BAC. In this 8 week long class, 7 weeks are online with a series of interactive lectures/discussions and traditional coursework and one 8 day week is spent with the entire class in Boston participating in a hands on format. This works great for students who need to juggle work, family and other obligations while also seeking a quality degree on the way to a new or expanded career path.

Touring historic homes and buildings with Steve O'Shaughnessy — Touring historic homes and buildings with Steve O’Shaughnessy

On the first full day of class we took a walking tour of the city with Steve O’Shaughnessy (NBSS Preservation Carpentry Instructor) visiting several historic house museums and notable structures in Boston. Having worked for Historic New England, Steve is an excellent tour guide with a lot of great information to share.

Traditional Woodworking with Bill Rainford

The second day I spent the morning teaching the basics of traditional woodworking — using a smoothing plane, molding planes, drilling, chiseling and other basic bench work.

In the afternoon I taught the class about window restoration, window reproduction and condition assessment reports. We then went out to do some field work at the historic Fenway Studios.

Next up we visited the Saugus Ironworks which is a National Historic Park. Senior Park Ranger Curtis White was on hand to guide us through this landmark site and enthusiastically share with us his latest research about historic ironwork. (He’s a great resource and if you ever visit the park and run into him, tell him I sent you. )

Ranger Curtis White explaining how the ironworks produced iron

Robert Adam (Who started the Preservation Carpentry program at NBSS and is a noted preservation consultant) lectured about historic hardware and fasteners.

Robert Adam talking about historic hardware and fasteners

Robert’s brings a portion of his comprehensive collection of historic hardware and fasteners allowing students to closely examine these items up close and differentiate fine details.

Sara Chase, a nationally known paint analysis expert and preservation consultant (+ advisor to the NBSS Preservation Carpentry Program) taught a session on traditional paints and their manufacture.

During this hands on session students not only learned how to identify various kinds of historic paints they also had the chance to mix their own paints in a traditional way and try their hand at applying them.

After a visit to the MFA in Boston, next up was NBSS Preservation Carpentry Instructor Rich Friberg to teach the basics of Timber Framing.

Rich brings with him a deep well of knowledge and a passion for teaching this craft.

Jennifer wielding the 'Beetle' mallet — Jennifer wielding the ‘Beetle’ mallet

Students had a chance to layout and cut mortise and tenon joints….

Joey with the 'Commander' mallet — Joey with the ‘Commander’ mallet

try out some joinery on the large scale with traditional timber framing tools…

and fit the joints they made.

The completed 8′ x 10′ sill shown above would be the first major element of a modest sized barn or outbuilding.

Matt Gillard teaching some basics of Masonry

Preservation Mason Matt Gillard (owner of Colonial Brick Works) and Matt Blanchette gave a great lecture on traditional masonry tools, techniques and evolution.

Rachel cleaning off some recovered bricks

This hands on session allowed students to mix traditional mortar, clean bricks, re-point, repair, lay brick and joint mortar.

At the end of the week the students also shared their presentations and research proposals. To celebrate the end of this very intensive week the Director of the Historic Preservation (HP) program Robert Ogle presented each student with an ‘I survived the HP intensive week 2013 @ the BAC’ Tee Shirt to commemorate the occasion. This well earned reward is one of three major intensives they will need to survive in order to complete the program.

'I survived the BAC Historic Preservation Intensive 2013' Tee Shirts — ‘I survived the BAC Historic Preservation Intensive 2013’ Tee Shirts

Given that we all survived this very intensive week and you survived reading this marathon blog post, I think it’s time for all of us to rest up and prep for next year. 🙂

You can learn more about this class and the program here or go direct to the video here.

-Bill

Fine Homebuilding, Historic Places, Portfolio, Preservation, Writing

Reproducing Traditional Molding for the Alvah Kittredge House

July 19, 2013 @TheRainford 7 Comments

The Alvah Kittredge House in Roxbury Massachusetts is a great example of high style Greek Revival architecture in Boston and a tangible link to the city and the nation’s early history.

Alvah Kittredge House in the 1880s (Photo Courtesy of Historic Boston Inc)

The Greek Revival Style was most popular in the United States during the second quarter of the 19th century. (Approximately 1820-1850) During this time period the population and economy was also growing by leaps and bounds. The United States was still a young nation and many folks wanted to show off their new found affluence. During this period of great optimism there was a strong belief in the American Democracy and many associated the ideals of the new nation with those of early Greek Democracy. Around this time, access to Greece and the designs of antiquity were also coming into the mainstream as influential citizens like Thomas Jefferson read books like ‘The Antiquities of Athens‘, Benjamin Latrobe and others built out Hellenistic monuments and public buildings in Washington D.C. and other large east coast cities, and builder’s guides like Asher Benjamin’s ‘The Practical House Carpenter’ proliferated the tool chests of local joiners and carpenters. Given this atmosphere many folks wanted to have their own building look like a Greek temple. For most of the ‘middling’ Americans, especially those in more rural and western locales the scale and details would be simplified down to keeping classical proportions and greatly simplifying details to meet their budgets — pilasters instead of columns, simplified moldings or even flat boards attempting to echo the pediment and other design elements of a Greek temple.

Looking up at the portico of the Alvah Kittredge House (Photo by Bill Rainford)

In places with money — like public buildings and mansions — the builders could afford to go big with design elements like a colonnaded portico and carved relief details in the pediment etc. The Alvah Kittredge house is a great example of a high style Greek revival home which reflected the wealth of its original owner, and of Boston and the US in general at that time. Not only is the house unusual given how the city has grown up around this once grand country estate, but the scale of the front facade needs to be seen in person to be properly appreciated. The two story portico with its double hung windows and high ceilings required wide and detailed moldings in order to be the appropriate scale for such a magnificent home.

The original crisp detail of this hand run molding is obscured by the many layers of paint over the generations. (Photo courtesy of the Taunton Press)

This 8 inch wide molding was made by hand using traditional wooden molding planes likely on site and from eastern white pine. This is not the sort of thing you can buy at a local big box store, or millworks supply company. The best way to replicate this sort of casing is to make it from the same materials and in the same manner as the original joiner….

Using a molding comb to capture the profile. (Photo courtesy of the Taunton Press)

I started by capturing the molding profile via molding comb or profile gauge which aids in transferring the profile to the newly prepared stock.

Setting in the details with a Snipe’s Bill plane. (Photo courtesy of the Taunton Press)

Next by using traditional wooden molding planes I carefully set in all the major transitions in the profile

Using traditional molding planes to replicate the profile. (Photo courtesy of the Taunton Press)

Many of these planes I use date back to the time period when the Kittredge house was actually built and yields results that simply cannot be duplicated by machine. The original handwork had variations and facets which catch the light differently when compared to stock that is milled by a machine.

Section of new molding alongside an original sample — a nice match. (Photo by Bill Rainford)

The end result is a near identical match that will help insure that future generations living in the Kittredge house will be able to enjoy it’s many details in much the same way as Alvah did when the house was first built.

If you’d like to learn more about how to make traditional moldings, please check out the related article ‘Master Carpenter Series:Traditional Molding’ I wrote for FineHomebuilding which can be found here (There is also a related video series which you can find on www.finehomebuilding.com/extras for the Sept 2013 issue)

-Bill Rainford
Preservation Carpenter, Joiner, and Instructor
https://rainfordrestorations.wordpress.com

P.S. The above post was written for my friends at Historic Boston Inc here. You can learn more about Historic Boston and specifically about the Alvah Kittredge House here.

Historic Places, Portfolio, Preservation

Well Done Wellington

December 9, 2012 @TheRainford 3 Comments

The historic Wellington House in Waltham MA dates back to the late 1700s and has a long history which was almost lost to development. In recent years this house has seen some exterior restoration, but now things are progressing on the interior as well. This post is the tale of how the kitchen fireplace surround was documented and restored.

First some history about the house:

It was home to the Wellington Family from 1779 – 1930 when it was sold to the state and became part of the Middlesex County Hospital and was used as an office for some of the hospital administration. After the hospital closed the house stood abandon for 20+ years and the weather and neglect took a toll on the building

Interior Front Door of the Wellington House

This house is an interesting specimen of Massachusetts Architecture from the time of the revolutionary war, the local militia and the large percentage of original details that remain intact in the house, though many of them are in desperate need of preservation.

Central Stair Hall, Wellington House, Waltham MA

In 1989 the house was put on the National Historic Register of Historic Places. As a developer was looking to develop the acreage behind this historic property the city of Waltham had the foresight to ask that this house be donated back to the town along with funds to cover the restoration work. Since that time the roof was replaced, some structural stabilization was carried out and much of the exterior has been touched up, but the interior is another story. Once restored this building will eventually serve as the offices for the historical commission.

Now on to the interior of the main kitchen:

The 'Before' this was the kitchen fireplace surround as we found it — The ‘Before’ this was the kitchen fireplace surround as we found it

Above is what the kitchen looked like when I arrived at the house.

Steve O'Shaughnessy working with me on documenting what was left of this historic fabric — Steve O’Shaughnessy working with me on documenting what was left of this historic fabric

Steve O’Shaughnessy and I examined what was left and worked to document the fireplace surround, paneling, cabinets, hardware etc via photographs and site notes. Water had been infiltrating the chimney stack and was causing a lot of damage to this woodwork — along with various small animals. The paneling on the right side was bowed several inches off the wall. Sara Chase, NBSS adviser and paint analysis expert examined samples to determine the original color of the trim.

Carefully removing pins so we can disassemble the paneling

After initial documentation we carefully disassembled the paneling so the masonry could be examined and repaired and so the woodwork could also be restored.

Getting the large panel and surround down in one piece (Pictured Bill Rainford)

Getting the central panel out in a single piece was an accomplishment and while exhausted at the time we were happy that everything came out without breaking anything and it even revealed a nice surprise….

Signed and dated 1904 in beautiful cursive -- likely when the panel was put back in to cover the earlier hole made when a stove was installed — Signed and dated 1904 in beautiful cursive — likely when the panel was put back in to cover the earlier hole made when a stove was installed

Behind the large panel was a large signature in fancy cursive writing that read: “Ernest S Farr January 28th 1904” I did some digging around on the internet and found that there was an Ernest S Farr (ca 1874-1920) in Middlesex who was married to Ida Farr and had a daughter named Helen N Farr in 1895.

The masonry seeing the light of day for the first time in well over 100 years (At least since 1904, possibly since 1799)

With the paneling removed you could see the masonry work of the chimney mass. You could see the heavy wood lintel was sagging a bit, but otherwise the masonry was largely intact. You could also see the scars of installing a stove into the main chimney flue and also into the flue for the beehive oven. It appears that the work of Ernest S Far was to replace the fielded panel and cover in the stovepipe hole in the primary fireplace, which leads me to think the stovepipe in the beehive oven was the later addition. I also have to comment that Ernest did a very good job getting that panel in place without disturbing the other woodworking — when we removed the rest of the surround we could see the cut nail holes and the rest of the paneling were original to the first installation.

Martin Hickman fine tuning some hardware during installation

My friend and colleague Martin Hickman (also from NBSS) restored the woodworking that was removed. This was a laborious task that took many days to complete.

Restored paneling being re-installed (Pictured Martin Hickman)

Beyond the dissassembly, paint scraping and basic repairs , Martin also had to work to remove the large bow in the paneling caused by the water damage

Martin finishing up the final pieces of the installation

Martin’s efforts paid off well as the final product once re-installed would likely have looked very familiar to the original Wellington’s who once inhabited this house. This room will eventually be used as a conference room for the Waltham Historical Commission. If you notice the small patch above the fireplace that is an area deliberately preserving the long paint history of this woodwork and will be exposed as a reminder to the later inhabitants of the room.

The 'After' -- the restored surround, paneling and cabinets have been re-installed and are looking great. The off color patch in he middle will be preserved under glass as a reminder of the change this woodworking has seen and for future paint analysis if ever needed again in the future. — The ‘After’ — the restored surround, paneling and cabinets have been re-installed and are looking great. The off color patch in he middle will be preserved under glass as a reminder of the change this woodworking has seen and for future paint analysis if ever needed again in the future.

While there is a LOT of work that remains on the rest of the interior the Wellington House is off to a great start and I hope that the rest of the building will be restored to its earlier glory in the coming years.

You can learn more about the Wellington House and some of its history here.

Historic Places, Preservation

What to do with 56 pounds of horsehair at Montpelier?

October 14, 2012 @TheRainford Leave a comment

On a recent visit to Washington D.C. my wife and I took a day trip out to Orange VA to see Montpelier — the rural estate of James and Dolley Madison. If you have never been to the home of the 4th U.S. President and ‘father’ of the U.S. Constitution, I highly recommend taking a day to visit especially if you are interested in modern historic preservation.

The mansion is situated on ~2700 acres and provides stunning views of the Blue Ridge Mountains and surrounding terrain.

Many people have seen Washington’s Mt. Vernon, Adam’s Peacefield, Jefferson’s Monticello over the years and depending on when and how they were preserved you can see varying degrees of ‘re-muddling’ from generations of caretakers each with their own budgets, skill sets and agendas. In more recent years Historic Preservation efforts have evolved along with related science and technology to try and adhere to more scientific methods and standards which allow for better educated decisions around reading materials, doing research etc — though there are still politics and agendas — my belief is that modern interpretations attempt to be more grounded in findings from the site and related research and more forthcoming with calling out what was done based on fact and what was carried out based on an educated guess — a trend I hope continues as new facts are learned about a site.

Many people have not seen Montpelier since the the property was a private residence for parts of the DuPont family for much of the 20th century. In 1983 the site was bequeathed to the National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP) which carried out a $25M major restoration effort from ~2003-2009.

Earlier entrance to the older portion of the home, note the ghost lines in the brick

After doing extensive research which called upon many experts in the field of historic preservation — from the National Parks Department, Colonial Williamsburg and private practitioners — the NTHP removed 23,739* square feet of living space from the 20th century additions made by the DuPonts. The goal was to restore the property to what it looked like at the time the Madison’s lived there.

One exterior feature that survived largely intact was Mr. Madison’s temple which sat atop the ice house which was the source of ice for Dolley’s famous ice cream.

The exterior work ranged from removing later exterior renovations to stabilizing, preserving, restoring and/or replacing exterior architectural details like the front door surrounds.

The side lights flanking the door can lower into recessed pockets to promote air flow

A close up detail of the pediment and its crisp detailing:

Other work was based on archeological and documentary evidence of the site — this was the case with the outbuildings which would have serviced the main home and was where the slaves and servants lived and worked.

Re-constructed timber frames of some of the outbuildings

The interior of the mansion also underwent extensive work, unfortunately we are not allowed to take photos inside, so if you want to see it for yourself you will have to visit.

What has me so excited about this site compared to many others is the fact that is was largely preserved — even with all the later renovations and additions the core of the house and many of its doors, windows and mantels survived on site AND the preservation and restoration work mainly happened during the last ten years with the benefit of being carried out by some of the best practitioners in the field.

The restored mansion takes on the look and feel of many of the historic buildings I often work on — you can see and smell the fresh plaster, the rooms are sparsely furnished as the Foundation is still looking to acquire some of the original furnishings — you can see active preservation projects going on at the site — it feels more alive and tangible compared to some of the similar sites which feel more dusty and tired from a constant stream of visitors.

The meticulous attention to detail in the restoration is evident throughout. On the second floor of the mansion they have a room that is partially restored and shows some of the more interesting finds from the exploration of the building — paint details on plaster and timbers, tags and branded numbering on repairs so future generations know who did what during this period, and an array of other interesting facts and figures. (Similar to the Gedney house in Salem MA)

So why would I ever need 56 pounds of horsehair at Montpelier? To mix into 90 tons of dry mix plaster* of course! That is how much plaster it took to restore the interior of the mansion. Staggering figures and interesting facts will keep your inner preservation carpenter happy as you take the tour. The foundation offers many books in the gift shop about the Madison’s and other founding fathers but below are two of my favorites as they are also used to train some of the docents. I recommend picking them up if you go there. They walk you through the history of the site and its inhabitants, documentation of the restoration and related research.

Montpelier Foundation Books on Preservation of the Site

If you are interested to learn more about the restoration of Montpelier check out the official website here. And for the gardener in your life — the history of the various gardens and landscapes can be found on this site.

If you are interested in visiting Montpelier, check out their calendar of activities on the main Montpelier website here. There are lots of events throughout the year including candle light tours, and tours going more in depth on the Madison’s, Archeology, Historic Preservation, and the life and times of inhabitants of that period in American history. I hope to see you there.

Since i am not in many pictures on this blog (I'm usually behind the camera) I figured I'd add this one into the collection — Since I’m usually behind the camera, I figured I’d add this one — “Now try to look more like a tourist”

And last but not least, since I an not in many of the pictures on this blog I figured I’d add on at least one touristy pic in front of the visitor’s center. If you make your own pilgrimage to Montpelier, let me know or better yet share your own picture in front of this sign. 🙂

* Above facts were taken from ‘James Madison’s Sovenir Book’ UPC 190001 and available from the gift shop at Montpelier.

Preservation

What did you do for summer vacation? A Decathlon in Historic Preservation?!

August 23, 2012 @TheRainford 3 Comments

Back in grade school, I enjoyed when students would get up in front of the class and talk about what they did for their summer vacation. This summer rather than taking a rest from a very recent move to New Hampshire and new job earlier in the year I decided to spend it pursuing my passion for teaching traditional craft skills.

I’ve been teaching the ‘Traditional Building’ master’s class at the Boston Architectural College (BAC) in partnership with the North Bennet Street School (NBSS). It’s a low residency master’s program in Historic Preservation wherein students come in from around the country for a very intensive hands on week in Boston and spend the rest of the semester working online. For 8 straight days the students are with me from the early morning until dinner time, they grab a quick bite to eat and spend their evenings completing the intensive portion of their other class this semester ‘Preservation Philosophy and Practice’ with Virginia ‘Ginny’ Adams.

Some highlights of the week included:

A walking tour of many historic homes and buildings in Boston including the Paul Revere House, Otis House, Gibson House and Trinity Church hosted by Steve O’Shaughnessy who is the Head of the NBSS Preservation Carpentry Department

Walking tour of historic buildings and homes in Boston

Learning about how to mix and analyze paint with historic paint expert Sara Chase who is a PC program adviser to NBSS

Learning about historic hardware and fasteners with preservation expert Robert Adam (former head of PC program at NBSS) and touring the Saugus Ironworks NHP

A private tour of the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) Boston

Historic plaster work with master plasterer Andy Ladygo — another adviser to the NBSS PC Program

Traditional woodworking (hand planes, moldings etc) and Historic Window Sash Restoration with Bill Rainford (NBSS PC Graduate and Workshop Instructor)

Historic Timber Framing with Rich Friberg — NBSS Preservation Carpentry instructor and master wood turner
Timber Framing. Photo by Zachary Ingalls

To commemorate the experience Robert Ogle, MDS Director at the BAC had the shirts below made up for the class which will be a new tradition for this program. I’m happy to report that everyone survived the week.

"I survived the HP Intensive Week @ The BAC Fall 2012" — “I survived the HP Intensive Week @ The BAC Fall 2012”

Once the intensive was over, everyone took a quick breath, headed home and have been busy with their cameras and notebooks applying some of the skills they learned to their own work and later assignments in the class ever since.

All in all it was a great way to spend a summer vacation.

Historic Places, Portfolio, Preservation

Harvard Shaker Meeting House — New Slate Roof

April 29, 2012 @TheRainford Leave a comment

Back in 2011 the NBSS Preservation Carpentry class worked on the Harvard Shaker Meeting House. It was a beautiful location. The class of 2010 worked on the front side of the house and the class of 2011 completed the back side. In this bucolic setting the class learned a lot about slate roofing and traditional staging.

Rear view of the Harvard Shaker Meeting House

Project goals:

Remove existing slate roof — preserving as many sound slates as we can
Stabilize existing sheathing
Install new plywood sheathing, ice and water shield and new flashing and vent fixtures
Replace missing cornice and stabilize raster tails
Re-hang the slates
Learn about traditional site built staging techniques

Below is a slide show outlining the work covered here.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Historic Places, Portfolio, Timber Framing

Timber Framing at Brookwood Farm

April 25, 2012 @TheRainford 2 Comments

There are a few different methods for laying out the joinery in a timber frame — scribe rule, square rule, mill rule etc

This post will take a deeper look at some Square Rule based framing.

Back in the fall of 2009 we worked on a frame which will be the workshop of an NBSS student using the Square Rule method. The project was carried out at Brookwood Farm in Canton MA which provided a great backdrop for our work along with the location of a later Scribe Rule project — restoring the old English style 2 bay barn that was discovered on the property.

Rather than custom scribing each joint in the frame — which is labor and time intensive, square rule framing allows you to effectively make some parts of the frame interchangeable (Think Model T Assembly Line) — so braces, joists are all cut to the same size to start. This method of framing came from the USA and was in part an answer to the need to speed up production as America rapidly expanded westward. Effectively you are using a square to find/define the virtual ‘perfect’ smaller timber inside the potentially rough stick you are working on — thus where the joinery is cut you are cutting back the side opposite your reference faces to square up that smaller perfect timber. This way you have nice clean and consistent mating surfaces. In the joint below you can see this on the top of the timber where it goes from clean cut joint to the rougher edge as the timber came from the mill.

This system allowed craftsmen (and women) to cut joints on the ground or in separate locations and then put them together for the first time at the time of raising. For those new to the trade that can seem daunting — but with practice and the old adage of ‘Measure Twice, Cut Once’ its not as scary as it might seem.

Below is a slideshow outlining the process of building a timber framed workshop/barn

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Historic Places, Portfolio, Timber Framing

Timber Frame Repair in Dorchester MA

April 21, 2012 @TheRainford Leave a comment

Timber frame repairs at the historic Anna Clapp-Harris house in Dorchester MA.

Repairing a rotted modern sill can be challenging work. Repairing a timber framed sill can be even tougher if the foundation you are sitting on needs to be re-chinked into place as well. This house had some interesting things going on — beyond some questionable handywork by previous owners or tenants as you’ll see in the slides below. As each layer of the building is peeled back you can get a much better feel for its earlier glory days. By repairing the sills and other structural issues first we set the house on solid footing for upcoming repairs and restoration work.

Look for an upcoming post showing the restoration of the front windows which really give the front facade a new lease on life.

Captions in the slide show give additional information. 29 slides in this post, so be warned it might take a moment to load.

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Rainford Restorations

Tag Archives: Historic Preservation

2013 BAC Traditional Building Intensive

Reproducing Traditional Molding for the Alvah Kittredge House

Well Done Wellington

What to do with 56 pounds of horsehair at Montpelier?

What did you do for summer vacation? A Decathlon in Historic Preservation?!

Harvard Shaker Meeting House — New Slate Roof

Timber Framing at Brookwood Farm

Timber Frame Repair in Dorchester MA

A Joiner's Guide To Traditional Woodworking and Preservation