George Douglass House Restoration Report for the quarter ending June 30, 2018

George Douglass House Accomplishments April 1 to June, 30, 2018: During the 2d quarter of 2018, restoration carpenters Tom and Chris Lainhoff achieved significant progress toward restoring safe, stable, and historically and architecturally authentic flooring in the northwest [“best”] parlor of the house. A majority of the original floor boards have been preserved and structurally consolidated. The restored and replacement boards [Photo #86] will be re-set on mostly original joists, which have been extended where ends had rotted, and have been reinforced (“sistered”) where necessary [photo #41]. The stabilized joists were then re-set in bearing sockets in the masonry foundation walls, or bedded on the stone vault supporting the hearth [photo #22). The original and some replacement boards were re-leveled to the original plane of the adjacent center-passage/hallway. Old tongued-and-grooved boards of the same species of poplar as the originals were acquired from regional sources and padded-out on their under-sides to meet the re-leveled floor-plane. Considerable shop-work was required to achieve an acceptably functional stability and dimensional conformity between the original boards and the replacements. Cutouts for 19th century heating vents and stove-pipes and 20th century ductwork [Photp #90] will be patched-in, utilizing the nearly invisible joinery methods applied in the hallway floor restoration. This process will complete the floor system in the formal northwest parlor and will afford a set of gauged datum points as calibrated references for the wainscot and other paneling and plasterwork to be restored to walls and ceilings. Degraded and late-period plaster has been removed from wainscot and upper wall areas [Photo #91] to prepare for re-plastering with traditional lime mortar, commencing in the 3d quarter of this year. Larry Ward