We are fortunate to have been selected to do some painting at the Heritage Village Museum in Sharon Woods, just north of Cincinnati. This museum contains authentic buildings from Ohio in the early 1800s. We are carefully and lovingly restoring some of the buildings, starting with the Elk Lick House, originally from the east fork of the Little Miami River in Clermont County.
Please visit their website for more information, or come out to Sharon Woods to see some of their historic buildings in person.
A 200 year old clapboard house, with many generations of paint, this project presented many challenges, starting with the fact that nearly every building in the village was some shade of brown. We developed a 4 color palette that would be mostly green, but still use some browns for accents, and suggested more detailing than the house currently had.
Fortunately, the museum had carpenters in to do wood repairs before we started painting. Still, there was a lot of scraping of old paint and it took two cases of caulk to fill all the gaps and cracks.
We covered the whole house with a solid coat of bonding primer to prevent additional flaking.
After masking off the windows to prevent any paint from getting on — or more importantly — through the windows, we sprayed and back-rolled the clapboard siding.
Although we sprayed the body of the house, there was still a lot of work to be done with brush and roller. Dormers were approached very carefully to not damage the wood-shingled roof. Delicate brushwork and attention to detail was the watchword on the porch, the eaves, shutters and window frames and mullions.
Finally, we got to work on the fun stuff. A couple of intense days of detailing the front entry left us feeling very pleased with our work.
