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June 2009 
Preservation Mystery
Posted on Feb 28th, 2008
by 
Professor
Professor
Preservation Mystery.................................................................................................
...........
In preserving and restoring a wall mural over the fireplace mantle, I'm helping revive an ambiance of grandeur within a century-old house. I found the mural quite by accident under a couple of layers of wallpaper that I had been working on, priming and patching and painting, for a couple of days, along with the rest of the grand living room. Then it started lifting near the top; I tugged at it and discovered underneath hand painted leaves on the plaster wall. So curiously and carefully I kept pealing away larger and thankfully larger sections of the old wallpaper. I had that wonderful feeling of opening a big Christmas present. The "wrapping" paper came away fairly clean. Perhaps the paper-hanger was himself an amateur preservationist, a generous artisan who used an extra coat of wall sizing over the mural before he papered it over. So, now, it's not too shabby.
It's a classic pastoral scene, a grove of birch trees by a stream running into a reflective lake stretching out to wooded hillsides and sky. There's a young man standing, holding an eight-string harp, wearing a Romanesque or Greeky red mini-dress drape, staring away across the water. It's signed S.W. Rettegi, 1911. The house was built 1910-11.
The massive dark stained cherry wood trim, defining and dividing most of the first floor, retains its original finish. It's patina here and there has crinkled with age and is, amazingly, fantastically intact throughout. I have hardly to do much at all to that beautiful cherry woodwork (except for the stair steps requiring spot-staining and and an overall oil finish). Primarily I've been painting walls and ceilings. The solid oak floors could be sanded and varnished. The built-in oak cabinets and trim in the dining room need some cleaning and special treatment to bring it all around to look as though it has simply been treated well, practically unscathed, for a hundred years. The solid oak kitchen cabinets were painted over layers and layers ago. They're nice and white in the main kitchen and dusty rose in the butler's pantry.
Two days ago I met with the Realtor who will list the house for sale and soon enough I will have to find a new place to indwell... or on into even an older one.
...........
In preserving and restoring a wall mural over the fireplace mantle, I'm helping revive an ambiance of grandeur within a century-old house. I found the mural quite by accident under a couple of layers of wallpaper that I had been working on, priming and patching and painting, for a couple of days, along with the rest of the grand living room. Then it started lifting near the top; I tugged at it and discovered underneath hand painted leaves on the plaster wall. So curiously and carefully I kept pealing away larger and thankfully larger sections of the old wallpaper. I had that wonderful feeling of opening a big Christmas present. The "wrapping" paper came away fairly clean. Perhaps the paper-hanger was himself an amateur preservationist, a generous artisan who used an extra coat of wall sizing over the mural before he papered it over. So, now, it's not too shabby.
It's a classic pastoral scene, a grove of birch trees by a stream running into a reflective lake stretching out to wooded hillsides and sky. There's a young man standing, holding an eight-string harp, wearing a Romanesque or Greeky red mini-dress drape, staring away across the water. It's signed S.W. Rettegi, 1911. The house was built 1910-11.
The massive dark stained cherry wood trim, defining and dividing most of the first floor, retains its original finish. It's patina here and there has crinkled with age and is, amazingly, fantastically intact throughout. I have hardly to do much at all to that beautiful cherry woodwork (except for the stair steps requiring spot-staining and and an overall oil finish). Primarily I've been painting walls and ceilings. The solid oak floors could be sanded and varnished. The built-in oak cabinets and trim in the dining room need some cleaning and special treatment to bring it all around to look as though it has simply been treated well, practically unscathed, for a hundred years. The solid oak kitchen cabinets were painted over layers and layers ago. They're nice and white in the main kitchen and dusty rose in the butler's pantry.
Two days ago I met with the Realtor who will list the house for sale and soon enough I will have to find a new place to indwell... or on into even an older one.
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