well, sometimes you have to step outside the wheelhouse to
help some friends, and it always feels good when you do.
our friends, the manleys, had been promised in 2021 that the work would
be done 'this year', but unfortunately, the contractor 'couldn't get to it'
and it needed to be 'got to' ... so, kristian and i volunteered to help ..
kit and i have long been good friends with the manleys, and ace's family
has owned this building downtown for over a hundred years.
to work at the roundhouse when i got off the bus in arlington 51 years ago ...
looong time friends .... we skied and snowshoed, fished, played softball and
paddle tennis, were more or less next door neighbors for 5 years,
vacationed together a bit, and all had kids the same year in the early 80s ...
read on, and click the photos for a closer look ....
here is the building in its original configuration as the combination cash store.
it was opened by ace's grandfather, and then run by his brother til the late 70s
when it went on to become a furniture store, a sheep skin place, and now,
the mountain goat, a patagonia store
we needed a lot of stuff to do what we needed to do, and on main st, no less
day 1... scrape and paint, polish the copper, consider the flaking plaster
day 2 .. upgrade/replace the floor, clean up the window over the door .. more plaster
there was some molding and flashing that needed attention,
and we noticed that there was something missing over the front entrance,
a matching cornice!
i photoshopped in what was missing and put it on the list
we started with the obvious repairs first, stripped off the rotten
crown molding and installed some new, and got monarch metal
to whip up some copper flashing to dress up the new moldings ..
after a little nibbler work by kristian.we were able to slide the new flashings
under the existing ones we had cut back to get the old molding off,
and now the painter, mrs. manley is on the job
with us daily, and making good progress.
on next to the new cornice ...
we haven't built many 25' long things in the shop lately, but we got it together
and with a little help from sam and luke from the metal shop,
we wrestled it into place and flashed it ... by this time, kristian
had repaired the plaster, and there were
only a couple more details to go ..
the original window
we had to spruce up the original combination cash store co. window,
and you can see a little of the new floor here ..
we just had to replace some missing molding pieces and spray paint
some 'fake' details on the blank new cornice brackets to wrap it up.
the brackets for the existing cornice had these nice carved through details and
looked more interesting than the blank ones under the new cornice
we played around with an mdf stencil and some spray paint and viola!
you almost wouldn't notice that they're fake ...
over and out ... this was a real 'feel good project' ..
always nice to help out some longtime friends ..
