A High-End Finish(28)
The house was a gorgeous example of the Stick-Eastlake style, whose most notable features were elaborate fretted woodwork, fanciful carved moldings, and stunning spindle-wood gables. The style epitomized the gingerbread look for which so many Victorian homes were noted.
The new owners had insisted that they wanted only the simplest updating done to the house. I had hesitated to take the job until they assured me that they loved every aspect of the design. Some new owners of vintage homes wanted to strip away those froufrou details that made some Victorian homes so unique and valuable. I usually didn’t take those jobs.
This home still had the original stained-glass panels on the front door and side insets. The intricate stick work that framed the porch eaves was in remarkably good condition. The pitched tin roofs over the dormer windows needed only modest repair and repainting. The new owners thought those features were delightful and just wanted them lovingly restored to their original charm.
That worked for me.
I tracked down Carla Harrison, my second foreman, at the back of the house and almost forty feet up in the air, where she was inspecting one of the third-floor gables with the owner. They stood inside the basketlike platform of our articulated boom lift, one of my favorite pieces of equipment and a real thrill ride. The steel-encased platform held two people comfortably as the powerful motor and pump allowed the mast and riser arms to stretch as far as fifty-one feet into the air.
I greeted Douglas, the crew member assigned to watch the lift and operate the lower controls in case of a glitch. Even though the upper platform had its own controls, it was important to have another person on the ground checking that everything ran smoothly.
The articulated lift was a necessity for any company that worked on Victorian houses as much as mine did, since many of the homes stretched three stories high and had roofs so steep that it was impossible to scale them. They were often irregularly formed as well, with balconies and turrets in the oddest places, so scaffolding wasn’t always possible. The boom lift solved all those problems.
Carla was pointing out some aspect of the intricate woodwork to the owner and explaining something I couldn’t hear. But I knew that all that whimsical woodwork—I think we counted 312 unique pieces—would have to be pried off individually and stripped of paint, the cracks would have to be filled and sanded, and then all would be sealed and repainted and put back where they belonged.
When the boom brought them back down to the ground, Dan, the owner, looked slightly shell-shocked. I assured him that it was all part of the service and included in the price they were paying for the rehab.
Dan gave me a weak smile. “It’s a little overwhelming.”
“It’ll be beautiful when we’re finished,” I assured him, but I knew how he felt. It was a daunting job to fully restore a historic home to its original luster. I was so glad that Dan was determined to have it done the right way.
After he walked off, Carla and I strolled over to her truck to talk privately. She was the daughter of my dad’s old foreman so we’d grown up together, part of each other’s families.
We talked about a small hitch she’d run into on the job site and the fact that she was still on schedule, a minor miracle. I got Wade on the phone and the three of us arranged a meeting for Sunday morning. We usually tried to meet every two weeks to go over the schedule and work out any crew or subcontractor issues the two of them had. We would determine which job got what heavy equipment for the week and which homes needed extra crew. And I wanted to talk about the slowdown at the Boyers’ house.
As I was leaving, I looked up and saw my guy Johnny kneeling on the flat porch roof. He’d been assigned to the Boyers’ rehab but we’d moved him over to this job site while the crime scene was in effect. I waved to him and he acknowledged me by holding up a brush and can of rubberized sealant. He was applying it to the seams of the roof to prevent water from leaking into the eaves, in advance of the change of seasons.
“Good job, Johnny,” I shouted.
“I do it all for you, boss.”
I smiled as two of the other guys laughed. They were repairing the porch balusters and doing a really good job, I noticed before jogging back to my truck.
From Paradise Drive I drove seven miles south to the Point Arlen City Hall. There was a snafu on a construction permit for a family who wanted to build a Craftsman home there, and while I didn’t expect it to be an insurmountable hassle, I wanted to show up at City Hall early enough to work out the problem and have the permit issued right then and there.
I wouldn’t have time to stop by the owners’ property today, but as soon as I got my hands on the permit, I would give them a call and figure out a start date.
It always gave me a thrill to work on a Craftsman home, although I didn’t get the chance very often because they weren’t my professional specialty. I’d been born and raised in Lighthouse Cove, so the Victorian design was my main area of expertise. And since the entire town had been designated a National Historic Landmark District for its plethora of well-preserved Victorian homes and businesses, I was right where I needed to be. Still, I was excited at the opportunity to design and construct a Craftsman home. It was a chance to show off my carpentry muscles. Luckily, the city clerk was able to clear up the snafu in record time.
On the way back home, I got a call from Marigold, who invited me to dinner with her and her aunt Daisy. She indicated that she had some news to share, but refused to spill it over the phone. I couldn’t blame her, even though I was frustrated the whole way home. I couldn’t wait to find out what my friend had discovered.