We just started a deck restoral project in Lee Massachusetts. Here are some before pictures!
That's black mildew in the grain of the boards. First step was to remove this with our exclusive process and cleaning solution.
Once upon a time, the construction of residences, office buildings, stores, or any kind of building, the interior plastering was one of the most particular and important parts of the construction.
For modern wall and ceiling repair, Berkshire Painters have perfected a technique of re-anchoring classic plaster & lathe walls and resurfacing them to like-new condition. Repaired plaster is much superior to, and more inexpensive than demolishing and rebuilding with drywall.
The cost of the material and labor in the plastering contract was only a small percentage of the cost of other contracts, such as the mason's or carpenter's contract, etc., yet to the owner and ultimate occupant of the building it was of the greatest importance. Read the rest of this entry »
The Berkshire hills are not noted for their grandeur, it would not be the proper word to use in a descriptive sense. They are beautiful almost beyond compare.
They incite the poetic instinct rather than awe and for that reason the euph- onious name "Mohawk Trail" should never have been dese- crated by introducing so unpoetic a name as Hairpin Curve to any part of it.
True, that would probably suggest itself to the mind of the engineer who, by the way, had to work out some mathematical problems in making that bend, but should this not be termed Inspiration Point? For that is just what it is. Read the rest of this entry »
The town of Great Barrington incorporated in 1761, comprehended the whole of the Upper Township, — excepting that part which had been set off in the formation of the Indian Town, — and so much of the Lower Township, — or the old town of Sheffield — as lies between the present north line of Sheffield and a line drawn nearly east and west, crossing the Housatonic river at the Great Bridge.
Its area has since been diminished by the elimination of its boundary lines in the formation of the towns of Alford and Lee. From 1743 to 1761 this territory had a corporate existence as the North Parish of Sheffield, — sometimes called Upper Sheffield, and during that period was included in and formed a part of the town of Sheffield.
The adjoining towns on the north, are Alford, West Stockbridge, Stockbridge and Lee, on the east, Tyringham, Monterey and New Marlboro, on the south New Marlboro, Sheffield and Egremont, on the west Egremont and Alford. Read the rest of this entry »
We recently began work on a family compound featuring a large three-story hundred-year-old farmhouse with a recent one-story addition, wrap-around porch, lots of shutters, etc.; an interesting job.
Our part of the project was to lightly prep and repaint a detached residence on the same property, a rambling barn structure with an apartment.
We recently completed the first phase of preparation and painting work on a fine old farm house exterior in Chatham New York. Most of the work involved carefully scraping off old peeling paint and collecting and disposing of the material.
During meetings with the client we explained that we could commit to completing the following tasks on the house exterior before the end of the 2009 painting season:
Remove mildew and grime from house exterior surfaces
Remove window shutters
Scrape peeling paint areas
Apply color-tinted oil based primer to scraped areas
We did this work on an hourly basis, giving the owner an estimate that the above tasks will take an approximate amount of hours, and actually completed the work in a shorter time frame. The owner had some painting work performed on his barn by a nephew, and we gave him the option of allowing the nephew to continue under our supervision, if he would prefer.
Once we were underway, we gave him a projection of the costs for the following:
We pointed out that a value change of several shades lighter or darker can require one or two extra coats to achieve full opacity.
This phase of the work was completed well in advance of the end of the painting season.
More pics... Read the rest of this entry »
The imitation of marbles differs materially from that of woods inasmuch as, in the case of woods, it is usual to do the greater part of the work in glazes applied in water color; whereas the nature of marbles demands a more solid and opaque treatment.
ONE of the most interesting peculiarities of Early American domestic architecture is its "localism," its adherence to type within the confines, often, of a very restricted locality.
