As a company we are always delighted to be invited to work in new areas around the Southwest but also around the United Kingdom as a whole. To date, we have completed re roofs and restoration work in Northumberland, Scotland, Wales and the Peak District. There’s something special about working in different locations and seeing how other tradesmen past and present complete complicated tasks. Learning new methods always makes us happy and we hope that our own methods are passed on when we’re gone.
This winter I was contacted by a wonderful family in London, seeking a specialist contractor to restore the porch and bay window to their lovely Victorian house in south London.
Both the porch and bay window were incredibly tired and rather in need of a new start. Our clients had a very broad knowledge on correct ‘old house methods’ when it came to materials and restoration work.
For the porch, our clients requested a slate of UK origin and after looking at different samples with me from Wales, Cornwall and the Lake District, settled with new Welsh Cwt Y Bugails. Another porch on the street had scalloped decorated elevations, believed to be original so this is what we aimed to achieve. A like for like replacement, albeit starting with safely removing all the failing and rotting asbestos slates. The wooden finial was so rotten that we carved a new one from iroko hardwood.
Having noticed that all the finials on the street were indeed rotting due to the junction between the verge, finial and ridgeline. We upgraded the concrete ridge tiles to a wood core roll lead detail. This made a much more architecturally sound junction and actually looked better, too.
We then removed all the lead paint from the decorative barge boards and inside roof. This was a time consuming job that required a lot of patience.
Once primed with a combination of linseed oil paint, turpentine and raw linseed oil we painted with linseed paint.
Another original detail from the neighbours porch was an internal clubbed façade and moulding. We traced the neighbours and replicated like for like in iroko hardwood.
The bay window currently had bitumen felt as a covering and was an eyesore. We removed all the felt, counter boarded and installed code 7 lead sheet bays with wood core roll hips for the elevation returns.
Both the porch and the bay step flashing was pointed in a lime putty, mixed with heritage yellow coarse sand. This has to be the best looking lime mortar we have used to date, and we shall certainly be using again.
