Restoration Archives - Bath Furniture Makers

Real oak beams to hide RSJ’s and steelwork

oak beam cladding for rsj steelbeams - wide view — oak beam cladding for rsj steelbeams – wide view

Steelworks and RSJ’s are an essential part of modern building practices these day but they look so awful in older cottages I came up with a way to clad the steel beam using real oak planks, glued together in such a way as to create the appearance of a solid oak beam.

oak beam cladding for rsj steelbeams - disstressed oak — oak beam cladding for rsj steelbeams – disstressed oak

Sometimes I will make metal straps and apply polyurethane and earth pigments to imitate old rusty straps, these straps are a great way to hide joins especially when the beam is long as shown in the photo’s.

oak beam cladding for rsj steelbeams - pegged tenon — oak beam cladding for rsj steelbeams – pegged tenon

In certain situations I will make fake joints to imitate a second beam at 90 degrees to another as in the photo above, this also provides interest in long expanses of wood.

oak beam cladding for rsj steelbeams
oak beam cladding for rsj steelbeams – wide view
oak beam cladding for rsj steelbeams – metal strap
oak beam cladding for rsj steelbeams – 3
oak beam cladding for rsj steelbeams – 3
oak beam cladding for rsj steelbeams

Restoring listed windows in Frome

House in Bath Street

This listed house in Frome was a completely different kettle of fish, the window completely through me when I started work on it, the house I was told was some 500 years old but this window had a secret to it that I only discovered when I removed the the center cover strip.

The windows had wooden pulleys but what was unusual was the width of the center mullion but after pulling off the cover strip it turned out that they were two windows mashed together which meant that they never opened on sash cords in this house

House in York Street

Typical rot job where the bottom rail and part of the sash stiles had gone, the best way to do these windows is board up the openings and take the sashes back to the workshop.

For more info and photo gallery click here

Cottage in Chilcompton

I’m bias but wooden joinery may be a pain to maintain but looks 100% better than this, certainly on a cottage anyway

chilcompton cottage before window and door replacments

New doors and windows fitted made from idigbo which is very good against rot but you do need to give it two coats of aluminium primer or something like Zinsser cover stain to prevent bleeding coming through, I thin the primer down by 10% to make it flow better but I then give it a second coat, thats not what it says do on the tin but after ringing the technical dept and explaining about the thickness and how horrible it was to use he said it was a good idea with two coats, it also sinks into the timber more rather than sit on top.

fitting new windows in cottage in chilcompton

Making my self at home under the umbrella

Chapel door restoration

Restoring the chapel doors in Rudge

These doors look pretty terrible and some might think there only good for fire wood, even the client set fire to the right side all though it was by accident whilst having a go at burning off the paint and got distracted by a visitor, he then decided to let me do it.

Thick Paint

All though the door had been stripped at one time they never bothered with the moulding and over it’s 178 years the mouldings disappeared in layers of paint and filler but before I could do this properly I had to take the door apart.

Taking the door apart

how to break a door apart for resroration — how to break a door apart for restoration

I dug out my trusty steamer for the operation and drilled holes into the wedges on the tenons and steamed away it was quite satisfying seeing steam coming out of every nook and cranny. It was then left to brute force with my lump hammer to give quick sudden jolts to break the joint and away the stiles came.

Once one stile was off it was left for the other side whilst bashing (delicately prising) but needed a different approach, I managed to get to battens between the partially opened gap which allowed me to make a slightly less than half inch thick hardwood basher and tapped the tenons out. worked a treat.

to be continue to photo gallery here

Listed Window Restoration

The Chapel at Rudge 1839

There are many companies on the internet that claim to restore windows back to there original state but I’ve yet to find any that seem to do this in the traditional way, either they patch bits of wood in and fill around all the massive gaps or they don’t use wood at all and use the miracles of products like Filltite wood fillers and the like, I’m not knocking them in any way and they may work wonderfully but when dealing with listed buildings I believe there should be more wood than filler put back and that’s not to say I don’t use filler but I keep it to the barest minimum.

Arch windows

The chapel windows were in a pretty bad shape but once you dig beneath the possible 178 year old paint there was good wood. Some parts were missing and the usual areas had rot mainly the water sucking end grain but all this could be over come.The glass is one of the most important part to safe guard with the fantastic ripples and faults that refract the light and mostly this is being accomplished all be it a few panes missing and the odd casualty.

For a complete photo step by step Listed window restoration please click here