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Winter Street Center Ceiling, guest post by Jacob Imlay
Read more: Winter Street Center Ceiling, guest post by Jacob Imlay(Hey readers, this was a cool job we completed over the summer, and Jake Imlay wrote up a nice blog post about it. Enjoy!) The Winter Street Center in Bath ME, home of Sagadahoc Preservation Inc., is striking at first glance. Sitting near the top of a hill, its gleaming…
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Good Day, Bad Blog
Read more: Good Day, Bad BlogThis blog goes dark when it’s sunniest. Seems like every day this summer has been a good day to be working outside. We’re installing the last repairs to the undercarriage at East Derry First Parish Church, installing electricity for the clock at Hampton Town Clock Tower, waiting for the…
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“We’ve been watching that steeple slant backward for years”
Read more: “We’ve been watching that steeple slant backward for years”The Troy Union Meetinghouse had a crane day last week. The long-leaning steeple was partially dismantled, leaving behind the two front posts to stand like wooden antennae. The entire replacement frame has been cut by a crew of local craftsmen, and will be resurrected before the end of the summer.…
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East Derry Derring-do
Read more: East Derry Derring-doThe First Parish Meetinghouse of East Derry, NH is preparing for a big anniversary, its tricentennial. What does one even get for a church on its 300th? Wood? Copper? Both, as it turns out. Beginning with a thorough assessment and rehabilitation plan in 2011, the congregation has been working steadily…
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Hard Work, Adaptation, and Love
Read more: Hard Work, Adaptation, and LoveThe client’s wedding was in a week, and the barn in which he’d marry was in pieces on the ground. It was crane day, and a Friday, two things that don’t usually go together. In the worst case, a crane day on Friday means you don’t have an additional weekday…
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Meeting Housing
Read more: Meeting HousingThe Lewis Conservation Center will be made up of five connected timber frames, a “Big House, Little House, Back House, Barn” where the Big House is a reproduction of the 1722 East Derry Meetinghouse. One frame, the Gallery, re-uses the Green Barn, a scribe rule frame from the 1740s. The…
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Kung Fu Timber Framing
Read more: Kung Fu Timber FramingTroy Union Church was built in 1840, in a vernacular style that combines elements of Greek and Gothic Revival. It is a modest building, 34′ x 42′, built to host the small town’s various Christian denominations, hence the “Union”. Caught up in that communal spirit, the bell tower is preparing to…
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Timber Grading
Read more: Timber Grading“They still call it Black Monday,” says Don Pendergast, standing over a 10″ x 16″ timber, 48′ long. He’s trying to grade a yard full of timbers destined for the Lewis Conservation Center while a wannabe April O’Neil peppers him with questions about his 20 year career grading wood for NELMA, the New…
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Freedom Mill in Food & Wine
Read more: Freedom Mill in Food & WineLast Month’s Food & Wine featured The Heartbreaking Story Behind The Lost Kitchen about Erin French’s revived restaurant in the restored Freedom Mill. The author was especially charmed by her surroundings: …Take a quick left on Main Street, and there’s The Mill at Freedom Falls—The Lost Kitchen’s once crumbling, now beautifully renovated…
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After Fire, a Family Doubles Down on Preservation
Read more: After Fire, a Family Doubles Down on PreservationRestoring an historic building takes a lot of stamina. The sense of warmth and meaning one feels within a restored structure comes from the labor invested by the craftspeople who built it and the experiences of the community that used it. Once complete, the Steiner-Truesdale residence in Newfields, N.H.,will reflect…