July 22 – Preparations for next year begin

Last week’s repair of the water-damaged floor joists in the Assistant Keeper’s quarters started us on planning for next year….restoring the damaged flooring and baseboard above the repair.

In a day before plywood, diagonal planks were laid across the joists. We’ll need true dimension lumber to repair properly. The hardwood flooring will similarly need to be “right-sized.” One of our volunteers has black locust and connections with a local mill; that’s a potential avenue for replicating the needed wood.

Another challenge will be to replace this section of damaged baseboard.

Reproducing the exact trim design may be difficult without commissioning a custom tool, which is likely to be prohibitively expensive with only a small section to do. If we can come close to replicating but not exact, would it be better to replace the entire section along this wall to make any difference less obvious?

Fortunately, we have a sample of the material so will run this past some of our “winter” carpentry volunteers to determine an appropriate approach.

Here’s a sample of the molding from one of the apartments where the woodwork remains natural. It’s quite elegant!

This raises another issue for the project at hand. The woodwork originally had a shellac/varnish finish. This apartment, however, had its woodwork painted over. Should we finish the wood with varnish? Varnish, then paint over? If we paint directly, it will, of course, be difficult to reverse should we later decide to return to a natural wood finish.

Here’s an image of the parlor. Interestingly, the floor is natural in the center of the room where it was likely covered by a rug/carpet and painted only around the exterior.

Any thoughts?