Restoration Builders of VA Project Recieves AIA Award of Merit

Our Castlewood Project has won the AIA DC Chapter Award of Merit. For the past year we have taken the early 1817 Neo-Palladian style Castlewood plantation house in Chesterfield, Virginia from this:

Before

to this:

After

 

We are glad to partner with Davis Buckley Architects to accomplish the restoration of this beautiful piece of property.

Thank you, AIA for the honor.

Eppington Plantation Siding and Shutters

Our restoration work on the 18th Century Eppington Plantation in Chesterfield is coming along smoothly. We have finished scraping, sanding, and priming the siding and it is ready to be painted.

We carefully built new louvres to restore the shutters; making sure that every detail matched the existing.

The finished product... ready for priming and painting!

We installed all new drainage to keep the Plantation house dry. This is the cement shoe of that system.

Rebuilding antique doors

This door had seen better days. 

When the painters abated the lead paint on it, the bottom panel disintegrated. 

The bottom rail was intact but the sides of the door, or stiles, needed some attention.

 The way the effect the best dutchman repair is using all wood, in my opinion. I like to use wooden dowel pegs to marry the repair with the old stile and lots of Titebond II wood glue. The clamps hold it all tight for 24 hours.

The finished repair. If you look closely, you can see the dowel pegs.

 This dutchman, on the opposite side of the same door, illustrates the dowel pegs more clearly.

 

The doors were missing much of their glass bead, or the tiny trim that frames each panel. Using an old school moulding plane, we site manufactured new bead. Stay tuned for the finished product.

Eppington Plantation, our latest old building

Various in the busy life of Our Beaver

RBVa got a new van!

When the bricks are this wonky, you have to cope the wood to the brick to avoid an extra-large caulk joint to fill the gap between the two elements: wood and brick.  

The bead on this trim was custom milled on site out of clear Western Cedar, using a table saw and a moulding plane found at a flea market.  Then the contours of the brick were traced with a compass and cut out using a jig saw.

Fun fine carpentry at Castlewood

This will eventually get tongue and groove sheathing, painted baby blue, and protect the entrance to the basement below.

 Cody and Syd got to do some production work! These handrails and pickets are all heart pine.

Modifying the rafters to notch around the shed roof bracket.

First pieces go in!