WoodDance Studio » restoration http://wooddance.com Residential Home Improvement, New Canaan, CT Thu, 12 Jan 2012 05:20:23 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 Porch restoration – summer 2007 http://wooddance.com/2007/06/09/porch01/ http://wooddance.com/2007/06/09/porch01/#comments Sun, 10 Jun 2007 00:18:28 +0000 admin http://wooddance.com/?p=33 Here’s a quick gallery of a porch restoration project in Fairfield County.
This is a turn of the century farmhouse and I rebuilt the deck using the same products used 100 years ago; 5/4 douglas fir T&G.
(While the world speeds into the future, some things haven’t changed. Wood is one of our most precious natural resources!)

]]> http://wooddance.com/2007/06/09/porch01/feed/ 0 Philip Johnson Guest House door restoration http://wooddance.com/2006/02/10/philip-johnson-guest-house-door-restoration/ http://wooddance.com/2006/02/10/philip-johnson-guest-house-door-restoration/#comments Fri, 10 Feb 2006 21:56:15 +0000 admin http://wooddance.com/?p=30 Following my simple repair to an interior door at Philip Johnson’s Glass House Compound I returned to restore the original Guest House exterior door. Also known as the Brick House this landmark was built oblique to the Glass House. Ground was broken for the two structures at the same time in March of 1948 and the Guest House was completed a few months prior to the Glass House in December of the same year.
Philip Johnson - Brick Guest House

I will let this gallery do most of the talking but point out that during my repair on this door I discovered something I have never seen before. As I moved a plane across the the bottom portion of the door, there revealed between the layers of old lamination, glue and solid pine was newsprint! Yes, in a millimeter of thickness were several newspaper articles. Wiping some liquid on the grain highlights some of the print in one of my photos. See if you can read something there. (Inspection of the high-res pics reveals legible print.)
Often times, during renovations, a carpenter will come across a variety of tidbits from the past. While my first scraping of this door revealed the many colors it has been painted throughout it’s time, it was in the middle of solid material that I found written text. Quite bizarre!

On a personal note, I point out the picture of the temporary door. Having completely remodeled my own home, originally built here in New Canaan in 1928, I saved my interior doors. Little did I foresee hanging one of my old doors on Philip Johnson’s famous Guest House at the Glass House Compound while I worked there for a few weeks in January and February of 2006.

]]> http://wooddance.com/2006/02/10/philip-johnson-guest-house-door-restoration/feed/ 0 A small job at the Glass House Compound http://wooddance.com/2006/01/06/a-small-job-at-the-glass-house-compound/ http://wooddance.com/2006/01/06/a-small-job-at-the-glass-house-compound/#comments Fri, 06 Jan 2006 18:43:03 +0000 admin http://wooddance.com/?p=29 As a resident of New Canaan, Connecticut I had the opportunity of meeting Philip Johnson in person on more than one occasion. It wasn’t until his Glass House Compound home was in the care of the National Trust for Historic Preservation that I was given the opportunity to work there.

I was called to the Glass House Compound for a few repairs to the Brick “Guest” House. My first task was to fix a stationary door by more solid means. As previous visitors curiously tugged at the stationary door they’d moved the panel and the loosened the handle. img_1657.jpg

I removed the door to reveal a brick wall a few inches behind the opening, installed some framing materials, and re-installed the door securely in the opening. The handle is now fastened through to the framing in a most secure manner.

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