Historic House Restoration Experts

I belong to an small town organization that is entrusted with the care and restoration of a 1856 Victorian Mansion. The previous committee had deferred a lot of maintenance, and for the most part the place is in OK shape. However, there are a few spots that need some expert restoration. This is one of the spots: https://www.dropbox.com/s/uodt5dri88q6uqn/Porch%20Soffit.JPG

This is a corner of the front porch. The rest is fine. I want to scrape the flaking, and then repaint. What can I do with this corner? Is there a temporary non invasive way to make this look better?

Here is a picture of what I’m trying to repaint:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/y0kz6pxekf5bwba/gibson%20house%20entrance.jpg

This is a registered building, and I don’t want to do anything we can’t reverse easily.

Keep in mind, we have very little money, but lots of paint!

Bob

There are chemicals that will prevent the rot from going any further, then you can paint over. This is repair and preservation, not restoration.

Over here there is often a debate between preserving what is there, and restoring a building to some point in its history. It is normal, that when some building material has to be replaced for structural reasons, no attempt is made to make it look old. Yes, the correct material - oak, granite, slate, whatever, but no to staining it to match.

I would knock off the old paint with a pressure washer. Then brush on some copper green, prime, and paint.

Any serious rot?

I have yet to climb up there to check it out. I plan on scrapping tomorrow and may hit the bad parts with the Minwax chemicals.

Now there is some worse damage on the roof soffits, but we have to live with them until the roof gets replaced. There still is a 160 year old tin roof buried under who knows how many roof layers.

Ideally the rotted out wood in that first photo should be replaced.

But the OP asked for a inexpensive and temporary fix. That means wood filler. You’ll need a quart. That will seal the area and prevent further moisture infiltration. It gives a paintable flat surface too.

The link I provided shows how its applied. A straightforward and easy fix that any painter can handle. Protecting a historic home on a limited budget isn’t easy. This stuff works at a low cost.

Epoxy is another option. Here’s a good rot fix how too link.

Either product will seal the damaged area and help preserve the good wood that still remains.

Never expect paint to save damaged wood. It has to be sealed first with filler and then painted.

Somewhat of an expert chiming in. For 1, I just took my first lead paint remediation class (one day and you’re certified). EPA is cracking down because of $$$ more than anything. It would behoove you to get certified–it’s not that big a deal. Getting fined is $37,500 per occurrence possible, and you can have many “occurrences” on one job at one time.

As far as epoxy products, https://www.abatron.com/ has far and away the best products–I’ve been using them for 22 years. A bit more expensive than Bondo, but infinitely better, and a lot less toxic.

Other than that? Good scaffolding and a http://www.homedepot.com/p/FEIN-Multimaster-Oscillating-Multi-Tool-Kit-FMM-250-Start-Q/202980163 are your friend. And a http://www.festoolusa.com/power-tools/hepa-dust-extractors/ct-26-hepa-dust-extractor-583492!

I do insurance restoration not historical restoration, but…

If there is problematic rot, there are quite a few good products out there for wood rot repair that allow you to save the original element while weatherproofing and strengthening existing material and repairing and filling decayed parts. Google ‘epoxy wood rot repair’ or just ‘wood rot repair’

I myself would not be taking a pressure washer to anything before I had carefully inspected it to be sure it is in good enough shape to pressure wash. Something as detailed as those corbels and capitals even in decent condition could be seriously ablated by careless pressure washing.

The missing section of soffit in the picture should be a fairly easy repair with some backing material glued in and the repair attached to that. The one corbel looks loose and may need to be fastened to the same backing.

Thanks for the replies. I’ll let you know after I climb up there.

All depends on how much time WPA wants to spend in the air. And how careful he is.

Also, if the paint is lead based, the chemical strippers may not work well, and could cause more problems than they solve.

Look around at real lumber yards - I don’t remember the name, but I had serious dry rot behind the original bathtub in my Edwardian - this stuff was obscenely expensive, but a pint lasts a good long time.
It looks to contain silicone - it is as thin as alcohol - paint on, and keep painting on until saturated. The result is rotted wood which is like rock.
THEN use filler.

Keep in mind: just about everything in the “gingerbread” on those Vickys came from a store - all that intricate trim, the curved stairs - all from a lumberyard.
Point is: they are not unique, and are now being recycled. SF has a recycle shop filled with absolutely gorgeous old house bits (pre WWII, all buildings in SF were either masonry or ancient redwood).
Good luck - maybe organize a work crew to donate a weekend to ripping off the excess roofing?
Experienced roofers only on the building, others send up lots of lemonade - roofing is one hot, nasty job.

How is the brickwork? That needs the mortar chipped out and replace every 50 years or so (“re-point”). I once saw a house that had its ground-to-top-of-second-story chimney pulled away from the house - at the top there was a 6-10" gap. The heat baked the mortar, which then lost its adhesive quality.

We will probably have the major work done on the house by professionals since we have to make sure the work done is to historical standards, but painting the trim is something we all can do. It is just this one spot that I have to deal with.

And then the repointing! Hopefully we can get all this done in my lifetime.

I did extensive restoration work on the Henry Demarest Lloyd house in Winnetka IL. My work mainly consisted of rebuilding window sashes and frames along with some moulding reconstruction and associated deglazing.

I used Abatron 99% of the time. The other areas I used Durhams rock hard water putty as you can get a smoother top coat at the expense of adhesion and brittleness.

Nearly 25 years later I recently drove by and stopped to take a look. The windows were still looking great.

Restorer here. From what I can see, the problem is bad enough that it’s not going to be solved with epoxy, still less with paint. There’s no substitute in this case for having new wood introduced, by someone capable of reproducing the original parts accurately. Don’t pressure wash, under any circumstances.

You’ll also need to deal with the water infiltration that caused the problem in the first place. Sorry, sometimes there are no easy solutions.

Looking at these photos on my laptop, rather than my phone, it looks a bit less dire. Nonetheless, there’s an area of soffit that’s totally missing in the corner. There’s no puttying that. On the other hand, it isn’t necessarily going to get dramatically worse, unless you see evidence of water infiltration, or squirrels getting in. I’m not sure about the rest of the soffit – the dark areas you see in the picture of the facade may be rot, or just missing paint, or something between the two.

I do think you need to get someone knowledgeable to look at it from close up. It’s in the nature of these things to sometimes be worse than they appear at a distance, unfortunately.