Cottage Facade

Cottage Woodwork

Cottage Window and Door Detail

In a week, we will be starting the interior painting for this entire six- thousand-square-foot house on the shores of Lake Michigan. Even though the house is only thirteen years old, it was built to look old, from its architecture to the hand-brushed oil paint used on the extensive and detailed woodwork on the walls, trim, windows, doors and cabinetry.

Even though the interior surfaces were still in mint condition, the arrival of grandchildren in the family precipitated the need to remodel the house to accommodate the needs of the children (and some needs of the grandparents also). Very few areas in the house will be left unaffected by the remodeling, thereby causing the repainting of all the interior surfaces of the house. Below is a list of the major challenges we will face on this special project.

1- Volume of Woodwork Challenge:
The walls on the first floor and basement are almost all clad horizontally with four-inch beadboard. I guesstimate that there is at least mile of that beadboard and more is being added on the second floor. So one of the woodwork challenges is just the sheer volume of painting involved. Everything is to be hand-brushed from the beadboard, trim, built-ins, doors and windows.

2- Hybrid Paint to Be Used Over the Old Oil:
Because of the great amount of woodwork involved and the fact it is painted in oil, we were faced with the decision of choosing a new finish coat that would stick well to the old oil without requiring a primer coat on everything.

3- Matching the Finish on New Doug Fir Beadboard on the Hallway Ceilings in the Basement.
New beadboard needs to be added on some areas on the ceilings. Our challenge will be to match the umbered look of the old Doug Fir, as well as the old sheen. This one is still on the drawing board!

4- Painting the Kitchen Cabinets
The cabinets are currently stained, glazed and varnished. We will have to apply a paint finish on all the cabinet surfaces. That is a piece of work in itself.

Meeting the challenges of a project, developing the procedures necessary to achieve the desired result and doing additional training and practice where necessary are the ingredients to the success our team of craftsmen pursues on every job.

Follow