Uncovering Rot in a Fulton Hill Siding Repair.

Rot in a Fulton Hill Home! Repaired by the expert team of Cody and Chad. This bit was uncovered during a routine wood siding repair.

2502 E Grace St. Project - Porch Repair

Work has continued in unabated on 2502 E Grace St. The porch had to be completely redone. Reframed, columns, steps. There use to be concrete steps where those wood ones now are. 

The tools

The porch.

The men.

Demolishing Anachronistic Features of a House

Sometimes in our line of work, we come across architectural features that aren't original to the structure or are added, but don't fit in with the historic character of the house. In these cases a little demo is required before rebuilding.

We restored the Hilary Baker House in Church Hill a couple of years back and this is one area that the client couldn't address at the time. Two years later, we are finally getting to remove this anachronistic porch. What we now see as the front of the house was actually the back of the house in 1819 when this house was built. At this point this would have been the only house on a large lot. Over the years, development of the neighborhood by filling in portioned lots with row-houses has turned this around.

We will be putting in a period-appropriate stone porch here in the near future.

Framing the roof and Master Bedroom for Church Hill Restoration

Work continues on E Grace Street in Church Hill. We have packed and framed the walls, laid down the floor, and are about to begin framing the roof on the back of the house.

Rebuilding a staircase in 1870s house.

An important job in this project is of course the stairs.

To be able to remove the old and install new 1x7x3/4 treads and risers, we had to suspend the railing from the ceiling.

Whole House Restoration 2502 E Grace St.

We've recently taken on a big project in a whole house restoration at 2502 E Grace St. This attached house was built in 1879. It has been severely neglected for the better part of two decades. The group that took this project on is concerned with not only providing clean, modern living space, but preserving as much of the historical character of the building as possible. It is a historic tax credit project, which is something that we specialize in.

After a month of selective demolition, we were finally able to get to work on framing the house. We finish the family room floor and have moved to framing the ceiling of the first floor/floor the second floor.

We're using the original girders that rest in pockets in the brick wall.

The joists were not salvageable, so we have to put new ones in.

Restoring 1860s Farmer's Market Cupola Cupola in Petersburg

We recently completed a project for the City of Petersburg to restore the cupola over their 1860s Farmer's Market on 9 E Old Street.

Years of wear, tear, and a bit of neglect had taken their toll on this architectural gem. 

Before

We rented a man-life to reach the top of the Farmer's Market for access to the cupola

This job required restoration of the windows, frames, sills, and all of the sashes along with the soffitt.

Completed and like new. 

Door Dutchman Repair

As an aside to our shutters project for Centre Hill, we picked up some work repairing the doors on the mansion.

We started by cutting out the rotten portion on the door stile.

We had to use two different pieces of wood cut to leave room for the flush bolt lock and then put another layer on top, to mimic the original milling of the stile.

And finally, epoxy the joints to hold it together and make it blend seamlessly with the existing wood.

Installing Centre Hill Mansion Shutters

Our large shutter restoration project for the City of Petersburg at Centre Hill is finally under way. We had to delay for a while while several movies and TV shows were being filmed, 

The project involved restoring or replacing several old shutters and the hardware. The shutters that were either missing or had to be replaced were done so by the fine folks at Timberlane Shutters. 

We hired Doug McDonald Welding (our go to for metal work) to fabricate the replacement hardware.