The infamous master bath. Designed by Julie

RBVa in the news

RBVa making our community happy!

A very nice client in the Fan, who has been blogging about her home restoration project, was delighted to see the work we've been doing in our shop. 

Still in the shop, working on the Powers' porch elements

Nick manufacturing new bottom rail, using the router and a jig to rout out a triple bead to match original material. 

Mike used the spray gun to finish coating all of the finished elements. I heard a rumor these columns were scheduled to get tossed. I'm glad they didn't. They look so nice now.

End of the day in the shop. 

Column/baluster work progresses.

All of these balusters were rotten on the bottom. We milled and doweled new fir on the bottom, and repaired any cosmetic blemishes which would hold water with Abatron's Wood Epox. We left a lot of 'character' marks, though.

Each baluster is primed, taking care to fill the end grain with primer. This is where outdoor elements always fail; when they soak up moisture through their end grain.

The final sanding before we spray the first top coat. The second top coat will happen in the field after installation.

This doesn't look like much, but this is our super high tech dehumidifying tent. Under masonry blankets for insulation, 2 dehumidifiers with hoses to drain them and all of the wet historic material sit for days. When their relative moisture content has dropped below 12-15%, they're ready for epoxy and primer. I like to let chemical dipped material get very low, 10-12%, but wood that's just acclimated to Virginia's humidity, 15% is fine.

Before and after. No seriously, this is the same room, same angle.

New details for an old porch

 The column bases were severely degraded; we built new bases out of Fir. I had some leftover PVC wainscoting from another job, which I attached to the bottom of the new base. This will allow the column to drain off the deck, and for water that hits the deck to slide out under the column. Below is the detail that you'll see from the yard. Win-win: we didn't dispose of a petroleum based product but repurposed it, and the column bases and the wood under them won't rot.

More porch restoration images

The day before the holiday, we finished the restoration of the round column. Below you can see its transformation from rough to smooth.

Restoring round columns

Most folks would call this garbage but these heart pine columns deserve a second chance at life. After working out the radius in autoCAD, we first attempted to piece it all together at once, which failed miserably. Second try was a charm. Today we shape the curve with a hand plane. 

Looks good from this angle but the joints were too wide. 

This way worked!

Restoring balusters

Mike and Syd rebuilt the base of half of the poor balusters. Some were poplar and some dense heart pine. The new bases are fir and are connected with dowels.

1920's Era Restoration

A perfect day for scaffold work and painting amidst the trees...

Windows and Doors and Stairs, oh my!

The crew continued to work on trim at Hilary Baker  last week...