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O’Kane Notebook II: Post-colonial Builder Stoked on Sweet, New Plane
Read more: O’Kane Notebook II: Post-colonial Builder Stoked on Sweet, New PlaneOver the past week, we have been using up our supply of softwood wedges at the O’Kane House. In the effort to gently remove the delicate, hand-planed moldings, we tap narrow wedges in along the paint lines, crushing the wedges with repeated use (and saving the edges of the trim).…
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O’Kane Notebook I
Read more: O’Kane Notebook IWe’ve begun in earnest the dismantling of the O’Kane House, in Durham, NH. It began with a training day with John Butler, a photographer and carpenter who has worked with us on a number of museum de-installations. He showed us how to remove trim without damaging the surface using a…
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Yours Gluely
Read more: Yours GluelyThe Hill fireplace is nearing completion. From the outset, this project has been among our most rewarding. We designed the panelled wall using HABS drawings from a house built by the father of the builder of this house. Knowing that the design is grounded in historical precedent lends the project a sense…
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O Yea, the Boards they Split and the Nails they Wrought
Read more: O Yea, the Boards they Split and the Nails they WroughtOn Friday, we peeled plaster from the walls of the Blue Parlor, in the O’Kane Farmhouse. Scott was Bill and I, Ted, as we traveled in our proverbial telephone booth through layers of plaster, lath, wallpaper and time. There were clues to some of what we might find. Surrounding the…
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Dismantling the O’Kane Farmhouse
Read more: Dismantling the O’Kane FarmhousePreservation Timber Framing has been involved in a number of museum projects in the past. We reconstructed the Brown-Pearl and Manning Rooms for the Boston MFA, rebuilt the Moffatt-Ladd coachhouse in Portsmouth, and dismantled 16th c. Carved Ceiling Beams for the Fogg Museum at Harvard, to name a few. We are honored…
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HABS to Watch Out For
Read more: HABS to Watch Out ForTomorrow we embark on the building of the Hill fireplace. The Hill house is a turn of the 19th century farmhouse, with all the attendant revisions and additions. The owner wants to restore her fireplace to reflect the time period it was built and the building trends in her region.…
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Windows on the Workbench
Read more: Windows on the WorkbenchAllow me, for a moment, to wax about about windows: They are the eyes to a building’s soul. The transom light above a Yankee barn door and the triple-hung sash in a meetinghouse facade help to distinguish a building, or relate it to its peers. Even when dismantling the most…
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Acworth Meetinghouse receives Preservation Honor Award
Read more: Acworth Meetinghouse receives Preservation Honor AwardBuilt by Elias Carter in 1821, the Acworth Meetinghouse, with its double lantern spire, is a masterful representation of historic building craft. But by 2008, the building was in desperate need of repair. PTF was called in to give an estimate, but Acworth, NH is far, and endowed already with a…