An architect, an insulation guy and an insulation guy's cousin walk into a museum...

Somehow Daylights Savings Torture crept up on me again this year. The obvious thought here is that I should be able to keep track of a bi-annual event all by my big girl self. But I can’t...because I won’t. I prefer to live in denial, ruthlessly shutting down the rare occasion that reality seeks to intrude itself, like for example, the whole turning the clocks forward and back. Denial is such a powerful mindset for me that I will, for days afterwards, read the time as it used to be before daylight savings struck. It’s only being blessed with a short attention span and the passage of time, that I begin to accept the new reality of the clock’s time.


Denial is a really lovely place to live. I rarely venture outside of its borders.

Example: A grocery shopping trip with all four of my children.

Denial – I practically float on air as I push the cart around the store followed by my well-mannered, docile children who follow my every command without comment, and intuitively know the items I need from the shelves before I ask for them.

Reality – I shop with shoulders hunched, avoiding eye contact with fellow shoppers as I speed race my way through the grocery aisles, pausing periodically to locate my wandering 5 and 7-year olds, pick up my 2-year old’s shoes (which she has thrown into a display of crackers during a tantrum) and tell my 3-year old to stop gnawing on the corner of a cereal box.

I’m the President, Vice-President, Secretary and Treasurer of Denial and I welcome all within its comforting confines. And since I find denial so useful in my personal life, I’ve decided to include it in my work life. Take the Restoration project. No really, take it ‘cause I am sick of it. But since I already know that there are no takers anywhere for a project of this scope in this financial climate, I will instead retreat into denial.

About a week ago, the Director had some visitors to the museum: one of our architects, an insulation guy, and the insulation guy’s cousin. (I have no idea why the insulation guy’s cousin was there.  I also feel like that was a setup for a joke, you know - An architect, an insulation guy and an insulation guy's cousin walk into a museum.)

“Insulation did you say?” I said...when the Director sat down at the table in the Volunteer Room (aka my winter office) to give me the recap.

“Don’t get excited.” She warned.

Too late! I live in denial and by her mere utterance of the word “insulation”, my mind quickly became convinced that the restoration project is poised to begin the last part of phase 2. No matter if we’re still waiting for phase 1 to finish up and the first part of phase 2 (window restoration) to be completed. No matter that the Director tried to explain the reason for the visit was to get an estimate of how much the proposed insulation work will cost when it is time to put that phase of the work out to bid. No matter, no matter, no matter. I guess I just don’t have the appreciation for reality that so-called intellectuals have. Reality to me is the Debbie Downer of life. The only reality I am interested in is reality television thank you very much (MTV and Bravo). I don’t need any doses of it in my real life.

Despite the Director’s best efforts, it was a foregone conclusion that I was going to interpret everything she told me as an explanation of how the restoration project is moving right along and approaching the beginning of phase 3. So like any sensible Director, she drank two cups of coffee, sighed a lot and then proceeded to fill me in on the visit.

As I mentioned before, the Director claims that the visit was only to give the architects and the museum an idea of the cost of the insulation work ahead of us. That information will be useful during the bidding process for that phase. Whatever. I was much more interested to hear what the architect and the insulation guy had to say. (Not so much with the insulation guy’s cousin.) They went all through the house, checking it out and giving their opinion. Starting in the attic or garret as we call it, the insulation guy debated over the options for where the thermal barrier (insulation) could be placed. He initially suggested that the museum could get by with insulating the floor of the garret and not the ceiling. I was confused because in my mind I was envisioning rolls of that pink cotton-candy looking insulation lining the floor of the attic. That would make the space unusable I thought. The next words out of the Director’s mouth were to that effect. Insulating the floor of the garret would make the space unusable and also very cold. But it would save the museum money because insulating the floor of the garret would require less square footage of insulation than insulating the ceiling would. That made sense for about a moment until I began to factor in the other rooms of the attic.

[Quick explanation here of the museum’s attic. It isn’t one big open loft. It has been divided into about three main rooms with two smaller side rooms off one of the main rooms. The biggest room is the main garret room. It is the greatest in height of all the attic spaces and it is unfinished. You can still see the roman numerals the builders marked the timber with 224 years ago. The two other main rooms are much smaller in size and height and they were finished to function as bedrooms for family members.]
As soon as the insulation guy went into these other rooms and saw the plaster and wallpaper on the walls he realized that the plan for insulating the floor would become complicated.

A view of one of the three main rooms.

A view of another one of the main rooms.

One of the two smaller side rooms.

Therefore he went back to the idea of insulating the roof. The museum is no stranger to this as at least the main garret currently has fiber glass insulation installed at the roof line. A visitor to this room today can see the big pink cotton-candy insulation hanging down from the ceiling. The bummer is that if the new insulation is installed at the roof line, most of the cool architectural details of the roof would be obscured. The insulation guy did suggest that a section of the roof line could be boxed out to keep an example of the architectural details exposed. Insulating at the roof line would be less complicated and allow for a more flexible use of the attic space in the future.

It's every cotton candy lovers dream! 

This picture was taken up at the roofline of the main garret room.  It's a little crawl space that you reach by a ladder staircase.  This is where the insulation guy found roman numerals written on the wood.  I tried to locate an example to show you all however a combination of a mild fear of heights and bad lighting made it hard to locate any roman numerals.  Trust me - the space only appears well-lit because of the camera's flash. 

Oh, and whether we were to insulate the roof or the floor – everything in the attic must be removed before work can be carried out. E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G. And that’s a whole lot of things. Lots and lots of objects still remain in the attic despite the prodigious efforts of the past and present curators. (Hey Curator, you should definitely move in to denial with me. I guarantee you’ll enjoy life a lot more in here than out there.)

Oodles...

and oodles of objects to be removed.

As for the first and second floors of the house, the insulation guy felt that blowing dense pack cellulose insulation up and down in the walls by room and floor would work. He originally was concerned that the brick nogging in the walls would take in a lot of moisture which would have a negative impact on the insulation. However his concerns were alleviated when he noted that the house has wood siding. The wood siding will serve as a barrier between the elements (like wind driven rain) and the brick. Some of the walls on the first and second floors (for example, the north wall in the north parlor) have double layers of brick in the walls – which would make it impossible to blow in insulation. In cases where the double layers of brick exist, areas of air flow would be identified and insulation applied to obstruct the air flow.

The north wall of North Parlor. 

As for the basement – they didn’t need too long to look around before delivering the verdict that it would not be worthwhile to try and insulate the basement. Why? I’m not sure, but maybe the fact that it would be impossible to access the walls in many locations is the reason. The Orientation Room’s wall mounted exhibit would be damaged if it had to be removed to provide access to the wall behind it. The south kitchen has bead board walls and ceiling which, again, would be damaged by any attempts to get to the walls behind. As for the Furnace Room, Volunteer Room and Paper Storage Room (in which no paper is stored) – maybe they’re just too cramped and creepy to bother trying to insulate.

Paper Storage Room
(Shout out to the Program Assistant/Facilities Support Assistant who has worked tirelessly on cleaning and organizing this space and who also said that since the space does not actually hold paper, perhaps it would be a good idea to think of a different name for it.  Good luck with that catching on with the rest of the staff!) 

Volunteer Room (/my winter office/staff library/coffee time location/kitchen/etc.)

Many would laud the Director for her foresight and commitment to careful, thorough planning by having this pre-meeting to get an idea of what the costs will be for the work to be done. I prefer to interpret the results of her meeting as an official announcement that insulation work will begin in the next week or so and everyone in the house will once again be able to feel the tips of their fingers and toes.

It’s a beautiful day in de-ni-a-al, a beautiful day in de-ni-a-al…won’t you be my neighbor? (I’m talking to you Curator.)

I'll have an epoxy sandwich, with a little 18th century sill on the side...

First of all let me apologize for the spotty nature of my blog posts over the past couple of months. And being the mature adult that I am, I am going to shift the blame to someone else. Actually, something else. The Restoration Project itself. (Did I just blow your mind? I’m blaming the Restoration Project for the fact that I am not posting weekly on the Restoration Project. Trippy!) Allow me to elaborate. I’ve learned that as time has gone on in this restoration project, the restoration project and I are becoming one entity. The following examples illustrate my point – the project is behind deadline, I myself am consistently missing all of my deadlines. The project has been hampered by the weather, my work has been hampered by weather that has forced me to vacate my office. The restoration has lost Big D, and Joe the Hammer from the project, I’m pretty sure that I have misplaced one or two kids during the course of this project (not to fear though, I still have a couple more at home so I’m good). Work does not occur on the project every week, I do not write posts for the blog every week. So you can obviously see that the restoration project is to blame. Nothing at all, whatsoever, to do with me or my time management skills. (As an aside, I also learned very quickly during my freshman year that philosophy was a discipline for me.)


Now that that bit of business is out of the way – I will bring you the latest. As I mentioned above, Joe the Hammer is no longer working on this project. We the staff have learned to deal with his loss as best we can. I myself am particularly upset at The Hammer’s departure because, while he may have thought I was in need of medication or, conversely, medicating too heavily, he was used to my presence and my (many) questions. I had lost my embarrassed shuffle when approaching Joe with a request for clarification on something. But now I find myself starting all over again and sadly, I am no longer the eager young blogger, full of energy and enthusiasm. Now I am a jaded version of that naïve little chit from last summer. I understand now that during a restoration project there is one thing a person can count on, and that is that there is nothing a person can count on. That goes for workers. So for The Hammer’s replacement, I can only call him Worker #3 (#3 for short). Anything else would expose my poor little heart to more disappointment. While this may be unfair to Worker #3, it is easier this way and in the long run, he’ll thank me. (Who am I kidding? He’s thanking me right now that he didn’t get pinned with some ridiculous nickname.)

So far, things are good with #3. The Curator and I took the opportunity recently (read – ambushed him) to have an open dialogue with #3 about the specifics concerning the south sill repair work (read – pepper him at a rate of 3 questions per 30 second increment of time). It was a great learning experience and a way to welcome #3 to the Cherry Hill family (read – a way to terrify and make him second guess his current employment status). During this “conversation” the Curator and I were working off a sketch that outlined the projected sill work. (I have no wish to mislead the reader, this sketch was lifted off an email sent from (Hey) to the architects which the Curator printed a copy of and which we had spent some time trying to decipher ourselves.) Looking at (Hey)’s sketch made things immediately clear for me – I had no idea what the heck Western was proposing to do with the sill. Getting that realization out of the way made things so much easier when we talked with #3, I was coming at the topic with a completely open, empty mind.



It doesn't matter if you can't see this image that well - it's still not going to make sense.

 First things first, #3 provided us with a mini-sketch that helped me immensely. He explained that the badly rotted sill which must be removed, will be done so using plain old fashioned hand tools, like a slick. (So take that Bob Villa – we don’t need no stinkin’ electric power tools.) A slick is a large chisel, characterized by a wide, heavy blade and a long, frequently slender, socketed handle. In practice, the slick is pushed, not struck and it is used to make fine paring cuts. Slicks are used typically by shipwrights and timber framers. And no I don’t store information about hand tools like a slick in my brain for moments just like this, that is what the Internet is for (thank you wikipedia.com).

A drawing of a slick

In case the drawing was not enough - an actual image of a slick

Using chisels like a slick, #3 will carve out the rotted portion of the sill in preparation for the new oak. But before all the sill work can begin in earnest, #3 explained that the floor boards in the South Parlor will have to be removed – which can be a tricky process because the goal is to pry up the floor boards with the nails still inside, without the nails themselves ripping out of the boards. Sometimes that proves too difficult a task to accomplish so a second option would be to drive the nails down through the wood boards to remove them. When the flooring is removed safely the sill work can commence.


#3's drawing of a portion of the original sill.  The dotted line indicates the area where rotted wood will be carved out with the slick.


In my last post I threw around the words “epoxy” and “laminated wood two-bys”, like a child throwing knives around pretending to be a juggler. I didn’t know what I was doing, and my lack of knowledge was dangerous. (Consider this my public service announcement for the month – Do not encourage a child’s dream to be a circus performer who juggles knives. No good can come of that for anyone involved.) Thanks to #3’s sketch I now have the confidence I lacked before, not only to throw around knives, but to talk about the work to be done on the sill. After the rotten part of the wood is removed by hand, step one of the sill repair includes the application of an epoxy-like consolident, (a kind of glorified wood hardener), to the old sill and the new oak wood will be fit in to the space where the old, rotted wood was carved out, (as demonstrated in the sketches below). The consolident will bond with the wood and strengthen it.

This is about when things began to make sense to me.

In step two, another piece of new oak will be epoxied to the sill where step one left off and bolted to the original sill. This second step is kind of like an epoxy sandwich for the sill. This type of repair will be carried out in the different areas of the sill where, as indicated in the sketch, repairs are necessary. The entire process will make the sill load bearing once more. Confused? Questions? Then I’ve done my job well.

Is a caption here really necessary?

But what about the charred wood you ask? I’m glad you brought it up. Turns out that little puzzle, which truly had the Curator and I stumped – may not be a puzzle after all. Speaking with #3, and taking into account a previous guess made by The Hammer, that “charred” looking wood probably isn’t “charred” at all. A fire in that location of the house has been pretty much ruled out based on the lack of documentary and physical evidence. If a fire had raged there, the mortar work would show residual signs of damage, and there are none. As to the possibility of a charred sill being recycled into the construction of the house – the closest the house’s builder probably got to the “green” movement, was standing next to a tree with green leaves rustling in the wind. #3 has hypothesized that the “charred” appearance is just the result of badly rotted wood. He explained that the wood is completely normal in appearance under the surface of the “charred” part. The Hammer had hypothesized that perhaps during an earlier repair to the sill in the museum’s history, some agent was sprayed on the sill to retard wood rot that may have been detected. The real reason for the appearance of the sill may not be known exactly but all signs point to something other than a fire.

There we have it folks – a plan for repairs on the southern sill in the east façade, and a probable explanation for a "charred"-looking sill!

A Meeting of the Minds

I attended my very first Pow Wow on Tuesday morning, February 8th. Maybe it wasn’t a Pow Wow. Maybe my idea of a Pow Wow more closely resembles the scene in Disney’s Peter Pan when Peter, Wendy, John, Michael and the Lost Boys celebrate Tiger Lily’s rescue from Captain Hook with Tiger Lily’s tribe. Maybe given my idea of a Pow Wow, the meeting which took place last Tuesday, that I am comparing to a Pow Wow, is nothing like a Pow Wow at all. Maybe I have used the term Pow Wow more times in this one paragraph than I ever have in my life, to date. Maybe I should just move on.


That's me on the left, the chubby one dressed like a bear.



We had a meeting on Tuesday, February 8th, among the staff, the architects, Western Building Restoration, and a number of New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Sites (Parks) representatives including the people responsible for processing grant applications and distribution of funds for the museum. Needless to say those of the staff in attendance were on our best behavior. We wanted to make a good impression on the powers that be, because they’re the powers that be keepin’ our restoration project agoin’.

In light of this desire to put our best foot forward (properly booted for winter weather of course), I arrived promptly five minutes after the meeting was supposed to start. The good news was that I wasn’t the only one who was late. Upon my entrance, a round of introductions ensued – I was introduced to 3 Parks employees – they were grants people. I then proceeded to lurk in the background while the Director did that thing she does – captivate an audience with all things Cherry Hill. Shortly afterwards the bell rang and our architectural team arrived. Another round of introductions followed. Everyone settled into folding chairs gathered around a folding table, huddled together for warmth, exchanging pleasantries, when the bell rang a third time and in entered the Historic Sites Restoration Coordinator for Parks. Again, introductions were given, space was “made” at the table, (I was relegated to a chair off to the side) and the architect began to describe the steps that were involved in deciding the course of the current restoration project. Interestingly enough when architects first came to the museum to investigate the buckling plaster walls several years ago, they had no idea that there was a bigger structural issue at play here. The original scope of the project included window restoration, repairs to interior finishes and addressing water entry into the structure but they quickly realized that there were structural issues that needed to be addressed first. Prior repairs to the sill on the north end of the eastern façade – where the original sill was removed and replaced with stacked pressure treated wood – didn’t address rotted posts. This caused the brick nogging between the studs to become load bearing all of which resulted in the settling of the building which presented itself in buckling walls and turned floor boards. As engrossed as we all were, the door bell rang again and in walked (Hey) Jude. By now you know the drill – a round of introductions were followed by more shuffling of chairs to accommodate the latest arrival.

With the arrival of the construction arm of the project, the talk turned to the existing sill in place in the south end of the eastern façade. A brief summary of the condition of said sill is as follows: Yikes. Translation: The 9x12 sill is partially rotted, a section of it is cleaved off and another section looks like it was charred by a fire. (That last point is especially puzzling as the southeast corner of the house where the charred section is located is an odd section for a fire…none of the house’ fireplaces are located near it.)

A view of the charred sill.

Another view of the charred wood.

Yet another view of the charred wood.

There are two two-bys which are laminated to the current sill but the ends of the two-bys have started to roll out. The original fear in regard to the southern section of the sill was that the entire sill would have to be replaced and that would be a fair amount of work. The problem with total replacement is that the interior studs of that section of the house are tenoned (see my previous post) into the sill and if Western were to replace the sill entirely, they would have to cut off all of the tenoned pieces. The architects think instead of replacing the whole thing it would be better to make it structurally sound by leaving the usable remnant of the sill in place and working with the missing or damaged parts. At that point in the meeting I was unclear as to how one “worked” with missing or damaged parts of a sill.

Before my brain became more pained with all of the thinking and writing I was doing, the bell rang again. Honest to goodness it did, if I’m lying may God strike me dead. This time the addition was the Shade Lady. Round of introductions, shuffling of chairs, resumption of conversation.

The window work was talked about. Mainly, it was mentioned that the windows were being worked on at Western’s shop. Two basement windows are rotted beyond repair and it was noted that work change orders were necessary because wholesale window replacement was not part of the original work order. Issues regarding the use of storms was brought up. The Curator briefed all present on the museum’s current plan to eliminate (as much as possible) UV light entering the museum and also reduce the visible light amounts as low as possible that would still allow for visitors to see in the full spectrum. The museum will use untinted, UV screening exterior storms made of safety glass. The Shade Lady weighed in with her thoughts on how best to mount blackout shades to ensure that all visible light is prevented from entering the window.

After all of the basics had been covered the class (no longer the Pow Wow) moved upstairs into the two parlors on the east side of the house. It was kind of funny to see everyone remembering to put on their coats to go upstairs, as opposed to go outside. Kind of funny in a very unfunny way. Upstairs the architect and (Hey) Jude explained the work that had been done and the Parks people were able to see the work with their own eyes for the first time.  Then the gang (no longer the class) prepared to go back downstairs and, horror of horrors, outside to inspect the sill at the southern end of the front of the house. I, wisely, snuck down the stairs ahead of the group to pilfer a delicious looking muffin which had sat on a plate on the folding table, just out of polite reach from me. Standing in the volunteer room I broke off bits of the muffin like a starved rat and crammed them into my mouth. I was startled by the early appearance of one of the Parks people who came downstairs to also have a quick bite. I thought I had successfully hidden the evidence of my meal but realized afterwards that the crumbs clinging to my chin and my hair probably gave me away.

Outside we all journeyed to the front of the building. The gate was open for us, and an employee from Western had already removed the thermal blanket from the south end of the house. However the large amount of snow resting on the ground, oh and the freezing temperatures, held most of the Parks people, and I am sorry to say the Director, away from the house during the initial inspection. It wasn’t until the Parks grant people admitted defeat and ran inside to the “warmth” of the house that the Director came in for a closer look. The architect, (Hey) Jude, and the Parks Historic Sites Restoration Coordinator scrambled up onto the scaffolding while the Curator and I edged in for a closer view of the exposed sill. Amazingly the a section of the sill appeared to have been charred but we (Cherry Hill staff) were unable to come up with a satisfactory reason for its appearance. There were no documented fires, or any other evidence of fire on the posts and walls of the house. The best we could come up with was maybe Philip Van Rensselaer was into eco-construction and had decided to reuse old, burned building material when constructing Cherry Hill.

After the exclamations over the charred wood died down, the three people on the scaffolding drifted further away from our little spot in the snow and thus it was difficult to hear their conversation. We took up a new position on the detached staircase to try and get a better look and listen at what the professionals were talking about. It didn’t work. And when they came closer and (Hey) Jude described what they were discussing in terms of repairing the sill it still didn’t make sense. I even tried to copy the diagram that (Hey) Jude made but it still did not compute. Luckily the Curator and I were able to ambush him by the museum’s potting shed door and with some “gentle” “persuasion” we got (Hey) to draw exactly what they were planning on doing with the sill.

Still didn't help.  What I can tell you is that there are sections of the sill that are either missing or are damaged, charred wood. The plan is to remove the charred parts of the wood, and to use epoxy and 2 pieces of laminated two-bys in some magical way that will render the sill structurally sound and viable again. (Clearly the process itself will have to be the topic of a future blog post!)

After the delightful field trip in the sub-zero weather, we all went back inside.  I was  nursing a frozen right hand (my writing hand – oh the things I do for my reading public), and several people were waiting for their vocal cords to defrost.  The Director led the majority of the Parks people up the stairs for a tour of the house. The architects, Western and the Parks Historic Sites Restoration Coordinator went outside to view the foundation of the southwest corner of the house. By the time the Curator and I donned our jackets and trudged through the meeting-made snow path to listen, the curiosity of the professionals had been satisfied and they were headed back inside.

The Director rejoined the discussion in time to view the storm window sample from Western. I don’t want to suggest that the professionals aren’t qualified but as they examined the storm window sample they seemed to overlook the fact that there wasn’t any glass in the frame. Here I am thinking we want glass in our windows and they’re only interested in how the frame will fit in the crooked window openings. Sometimes the professionals can be so obtuse! (I kid you! Or do I?) Setting aside the absence of glass, the architects and the Parks restoration coordinator were well pleased with the sample. They reiterated the necessity of trimming the frames to fit, but to not fit too tightly. Since Western will be using a window template when doing the work, the others cautioned that in the cases of really crooked window frames, that adjustments would have to be made to align the exterior storm with the opening.

I think the quality of this photo speaks volumes as to my natural ability as a photographer.  Oh and, this is a shot of the exterior storm sample that Western provided. 

I thought this would serve as an excellent example of a "really crooked window frame" but it doesn't translate so well in this photograph.  But trust me - this window is an excellent example of a really crooked window frame and Western will have to make the appropriate adjustments to the exterior storm that is installed there. 

(Hey) Jude promised to get moving on the sill work and also stated that March would be a good time to complete the painting of the shutters and installation of the storms.

Then the Director pulled a fast one on unsuspecting, little ol’ me. She ditched me. She took off to join the Curator and the Parks employees at the storage building leaving me to follow the architects, (Hey) and Restoration Coordinator around the house like a mute puppy.

They were mostly interested in viewing the windows and talking some more about what needed to be done in terms of installation of restored windows. A lively debate on all things window-related followed: weather stripping (to be avoided if at all possible, except for those windows where evidence exists that it was used); dealing with the gap at the meeting rails which poses a big risk of heat loss (exterior storms should help a lot , also making sure the surfaces where the sash is raised is as smooth as possible and the window hardware should help on that end); upper sash of the windows are to remain fixed in place (as they originally were); acknowledgment that given the varying conditions of each individual window – different steps will have to be taken to ensure that all variables are accounted for (as (Hey) Jude said – each window will be a dance). And here I thought a window restoration was easy peasy compared to sill repair.

It was a good meeting overall – Parks people got to put a face to the name Historic Cherry Hill that so often crosses their desk on paperwork, a decision was made on how to handle the sill repair on the south end, the storm sample was approved and different contingencies were discussed in terms of reinstallation of restored windows. And I not only got to eat the muffin I snatched during the meeting, but also the rest of the muffins left over from the meeting. Aaah, life is good.

Cloudy, with a chance of snow....

I can’t think of a better winter season to undergo a massive restoration project – can you? What are the delays in work that massive amounts of snow, sleet, freezing rain and subzero temperatures cause compared to the satisfaction of conquering a challenge (or in the case of this past month, the multiple challenges) Mother Nature has thrown our way? Sure it’s cold at the house and we find ourselves making ridiculous excuses to sit in the bathroom (which just happens to be the warmest room in the house at this point – no kidding it’s sauna-like), but that doesn’t mean we aren’t enjoying ourselves.


But those delays are annoying. The meeting that was supposed to take place last Wednesday amongst the Director, Curator, Western Building Restoration, the architectural team, our Parks (New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Sites) contact and Shade Lady did not happen. Bad weather to the south forced the cancellation of the meeting and clearly there hasn’t been an opportunity to reschedule given the combined hysteria of local and national weather forecasters when there is any precipitation headed our way. So structural work is pretty much at a standstill.

The last time I checked in with Joe the Hammer, about a week and a half ago, I was surprised to find out how busy he had been. For starters he had removed the front porch stairs from the house in order to access the sill located under the front door.

The Great Divide

A Close-up of the Great Divide

At some point in the museum’s past, sill repair had been made at this section (under the front door) but unfortunately those previous repairs were not well done. There was no overlap between the boards used for the previous sill (meaning that the sections of wood used for the sill had gaps in between), and none of the exterior posts were sitting on the sill, they were hanging in the air.

Warning - This is an photo of the old sill that has already been replaced on the northern side of the east facade.  I'm using it to illustrate what a sill with some overlap looks like - as you can see there are gaps in between the pieces of timber where there is no overlap.  Now imagine an old sill with no overlap at all and that is apparently what the sill looked like under the front door before The Hammer replaced it.

The Hammer replaced the old sill with 3ft and 4ft sections of wood to create the new sill.

Partial view of the new wood used to replace the old sill under the front door.

He also had been busy constructing scaffolding at the southern end of the front of the house, including inserting the needle beams into the house (anchored to lally columns on the ground), all in preparation for sill work on the southern end. The meeting that never happened, once it does happen, will be critical to determining how to move forward with sill work on the south end. The sill looks bad to me, like it would take buckets of epoxy to make it structurally sound again – but then again, mine is the untrained eye. I think a crack in the plaster wall in my bedroom portends a disaster of epic proportions in the making, but my husband tells me to stop wearing his hockey helmet to bed and accept that it is just a side effect of the settling of the house. Clearly I’m not the right person to decide what looks bad or not.

Although no work can go forward on the sill, The Hammer made Dutchman repairs to the exterior posts with an eye towards the impending sill work to come, meaning that although the sill may have to be replaced, his repairs are removable in order to accommodate the future sill work. The Dutchman repairs can be unbolted and removed if necessary. The Dutchman repair has a tenon, or projection at the end of the wood post, for insertion into a mortise joint. A mortise is a cavity cut into wood to receive a tenon. If the sill needs to be replaced, a mortise joint will be cut into the new sill timber for each tenon on the repaired posts to sit in.

Picture shows some of the exterior post repairs that Joe the Hammer has completed.

Joe the Hammer is holding wood pieces that will be used in the Dutchman repair of one of the original posts.  The tenon is the piece that extends at the bottom. 

In addition to the work Joe the Hammer has done on the exterior of the house, he also was able to put the lath back up on the wall in the north parlor. All that remains is for the walls to be plastered and then the interior work in the north parlor will be done. Since he has done all of the sill work that can be done at the present, The Hammer has turned his sights to removing more windows from the house to take to Western’s workshop for restoration work.

The lath is back!!

Beyond that – the restoration work awaits a lull in the storm systems to hold that much anticipated meeting which will decide the fate of the sill on the southern side of the east façade. Until then, the staff plans to stock up on carbs to outlast the bitter cold. Luckily we have a ready supply of carbs at Uncle Dan’s Diner located down the block from the museum. It’s not an easy job, shoveling food into our mouths as if we’re preparing for hibernation, but it is necessary if we want to make it through the cold weather to the spring. Of course, with the types of carbs we’re ingesting, we don’t have any idea what we’re going to look like when springtime rolls around (mmm, rolls…) - but as my favorite hoop-skirted southern belle Scarlett O’Hara said, “I can’t think about this now. I’ll go crazy if I do. I’ll think about it tomorrow.”

As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again!  Especially if my carbs are smothered in cheese.

We laughed, we cried, we allegedly committed murder....

I had no idea when I agreed to go on a road trip with the Director and the Curator two weeks ago, that the trip would begin at the Police Station, continue with a hit and run, and end in Mexico.

Thursday morning, January 13th, started out pleasantly enough – I was super excited about the prospect of a peppermint hot chocolate from Starbucks (with whipped cream thank you very much sir, do you really need to ask?). In comparison, I may have been slightly less excited about the window sight-seeing tour we were about to embark on but then again I have never made secret my delight in all things edible and unhealthy. As our departure time was a bit fluid, and as the Director hadn’t arrived yet, I sat down at my desk to get in a little bit of work before we left. Reflecting smugly on my productivity and work ethic, I answered the ringing phone in my most friendly and engaging voice, albeit in a voice register somewhere between that of a pre-adolescent choir boy and Minnie Mouse.

Me: “Good Morning, Historic Cherry Hill. How may I help you?”

Caller: “You’re not going to believe this.”

Me: “Director?”

The Director formerly known as Caller: “My car has been towed. There was snow emergency parking last night and when I came out this morning my car was gone!”

Me: [Silence while an internal battle raged to suppress any unsympathetic sniggers or giggles]

The Director: [Panicked breathing]

Me: “Do you know where your car is?”

The Director: “No! I have to call the city…maybe we could rent a car for the drive.”

Me [slightly offended that the Director would rather rent a car and drive then let me drive us all in my minivan]: “We can take my car.”

The Director: [Long Pause] “I’ll call the city. Can you guys come and pick me up at my place.”

Me: “Okay.”

About twenty minutes later the Curator and I pulled up to the side of the road to pick up a very annoyed Director. The Director climbed into the van (whose “high-tech” handle proved too difficult for her to master on her first try) and directed me to our next destination. THE POLICE STATION!

As I parked the car in THE POLICE STATION! parking lot, the Curator and I eagerly exited the car and practically skipped to accompany our fearless leader inside the citadel of justice. The Director didn’t seem to appreciate our show of support, particularly because the support was offered with barely suppressed glee. We walked into THE POLICE STATION! with our Director leading the way like we were a couple of overexcited puppies she was trying to control. While she attempted to communicate (communicate = shout back and forth) through a tiny hole in a glass window with an officer in blue on the other side, the Curator and I sized up the space, eagerly watching as more miserable Albanians shuffled in, a rag tag group of snow emergency parking victims and…others. Unfortunately we were only there for a very short time, but it was long enough for The Director to sign some paperwork, obtain the location of the tow-company that took her beloved car, and weasel her way out of some overdue parking tickets Officer O’Malley discovered she owed during the whole process. I don’t think she was enjoying the experience as much as we were. I high-fived a man resembling Grizzly Adams on the way out the door, and shouted "Power to the People!" before we emerged into the sunlight to sniff the sweet smell of freedom, a heady mix of car exhaust and stale urine.

We hopped back into the van and made our way to free the Director’s car. We had to go inside the tow-company’s office where the Director once again “communicated” with someone through a tiny hole in a glass window and then paid the cost of the tow before being gifted with the location of her car - something along the lines of “It’s in the lot at the back of the building.” Into the car we piled again and I drove the director to the lot at the back of the building which we found to be filled with cars in varying degrees of burial under the snow. For a moment it looked like the Director’s bad luck was going to hold and we would have to play a game of Marco Polo with her car using the panic button on her keychain, but much to the disappointment of both the Curator and I, the Director located her car quickly.

So the road trip was on – but first we had to go back to the museum to drop off my car and climb into the newly recovered car of the Director. But once we climbed in – the road trip was on! To the first rest stop on the Thruway heading south where coffee and hot chocolate was purchased. But after that – the road trip was on!

We traveled to Katonah, NY to visit Stepping Stones, a historic house museum. The house was the home of Bill Wilson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, and his wife Lois, co-founder of Al-Anon Family Groups. The Executive Director of Stepping Stones greeted us, winter hat on head and guided us along a snow covered path, approximately the width of a single human foot, from the office building to the historic house. As I attempted to place one foot in front of the other on the path across what in my mind seemed more akin to a frozen tundra in northern Russia than a yard in Westchester County, I reflected for the 17th time in my life that my sense of balance was more suited to a one-legged clown than a two-legged Communications Coordinator.

Stepping Stones has recently installed exterior storm windows similar to the ones we are planning to install at Historic Cherry Hill. Our trek through the snow afforded us a lovely view of the house and its exterior windows. I dutifully snapped pictures while the museum professionals talked about UV filtration, window installation and things of that nature.

The exterior storm windows seen here at Stepping Stones are similar to what Historic Cherry Hill will install.

Close up of an exterior storm window at Stepping Stones

What did grab my attention after looking around the first floor of the house, (once again while the real professionals conversed), were the measurement instruments the Executive Director of Stepping Stones brought along to take some measurements with. She had both a visible light measure and a UV light measure. The Curator was instantly drawn to the measurement devices like a Communications Coordinator is drawn to cheese fries – picking up the visible light meter, she began figuring out how the device worked. It took some time to understand what the readings meant in terms of measurement of light (lux) but eventually she clued us in on the following:

Level A: 0-1999

x1 lux

Level B: 2000-19999

x10 lux

Level C: 20,000-50,000

x100 lux

The visible light meter - I will confess I was a little disappointed to find that the light meter was not similar in any way, shape or form to the lightsabers from the Star Wars movies.

These readings may not mean anything at all to anyone who isn’t holding the instruction booklet to the light meter in their hands, and even then, if you’re like me, it still won’t mean anything to you. However I was lucky enough to have the Curator with me and she being, (I think), a direct descendant of Mr. Wizard, was able to talk me through the process. We took visible light measurements in one particularly sunny room and were amazed at the difference in light measurement when a window was covered with sheer curtains versus when a window was devoid of  window treatments.  The amount of visible light that traveled through a bare window was reduced by almost 57% with just the addition of the sheer vurtains. 

Because visible light poses such a danger to collections, museums in general strive to keep lux levels low but in such a way that a visitor can still enjoy the full color of the objects they are looking at.  In the best circumstances, a person needs a minimum of 50 lux to still be able to see - it is a level that museums aim for.  Now, the lux requirement will go up depending on the conditions of the room and the needs of people viewing the room. For example, one would multiply 50 lux by 3 to accommodate the vision of an elderly person; one would multiply 50 lux by 3 if looking at a low contrast object in the room; one would multiply by 3 if there are dark paintings on view; one would multiply by 3 if there was fine detail on an object on view. So if an older person came into a room to look at a dark painting and also examine the fine detail of the painting’s picture frame – you would multiply 50 lux by 3, by 3, by 3 to get a necessary lux measurement of 1350 lux which a musuem would need for that older visitor to comfortably view the painting and all its detail.

Moving on to the next gadget: the UV light meter. The Curator took some measurements which I dutifully recorded. We took the UV light measurements in several different spots in the house. Since we weren’t as confident in our understanding of what the UV light measurements meant, i.e. what UV range was acceptable in a museum environment, we took the measurements home to analyze another day. We want to understand how effective the UV filter in the exterior storms is as we are relying on that to filter out UV light in our museum.

This picture of the Curator holding the UV light meter is going in her hand-modeling portfolio - we're hoping it will be her lucky break.

This is an example of an ancient Greek scroll...wait a minute, no...my mistake, that's got something to do with the UV light sensor.

We left Stepping Stones to head to our next destination, Olana State Historic Site, in Hudson, NY. Our plan was to check out the “screeney blinds” Olana used on their windows, to see what our opinion was of them. Instead of taking the Thruway north we made our way to the Taconic State Parkway, deeming that the faster route. Little did we know what horror awaited us halfway to our destination. Driving along, the Director and the Curator in the front seat, myself in the back, things seemed to be going well. We were a little bit ahead of schedule and congratulating ourselves on that feat. Only another hour or so and we would be to Olana. Then the unthinkable happened. A blur in the sky, a thump on the front bumper of the car. The Director kept driving while I sat in the back seat, gasping in horror, my eyes wide with the realization that I had just witnessed a hit and run. Leaning forward, trembling hands clasped as if in supplication to the almighty Director to “say it ain’t so”, I stammered out the question – “Did you just hit a bird?” to which the Director replied, “Yeah….I did.” And there the three of us sat, all guilty of taking the life of a harmless little bird. The weight of our guilt weighed heavily on us for a couple of seconds, but then the Director said, “I think I just stunned it.” And, call me crazy, but I believed her – sure we were going over 60 mph and the thing took a kamikaze dive into the hood of the Director’s car but gosh darn it, yes, I agree, the Director probably just stunned it.

R.I.P.
2010-2011

Arriving at Olana, after taking a solemn blood oath to never breathe a word of our heinous deed to anyone on pain of immediate termination of employment (the Director’s idea), we were greeted by Olana’s curator who brought us into the house to view the “screeney blinds,” although she just called them solar shades. The thing about Olana, in case you aren’t aware, is that this house was built for the views out its windows, and those views are stunning. I was skeptical, thinking that the “screeney blinds” would intrude too much into my personal enjoyment of those views. I was pleasantly surprised to realize that it wasn’t as bad as I imagined. Of course nothing can compare to an unimpeded view of the Hudson River from Olana’s hilltop perch but the view through the “screeney blinds” was acceptable. We left Olana rethinking our previous stance on the “screeney blinds” question and took a quick drive across the Rip Van Winkle bridge to take a look at Thomas Cole House which had the same “screeney blinds” but in white to see the different options available to us.

Olana State Historic Site - it sits on a magical hill that has flowers and blue skies even in the middle of January (at least that's what I am pretending, having lifted this picture off its website)

After all of the “site”-seeing ( a little historic house humor for you) we were ravenous as we hadn’t stopped for lunch and it was about 5pm, so we crossed the Rip Van Winkle bridge one more time and took the road to Mexico. To be a little more precise – to Mexican Radio a great Mexican restaurant in Hudson, NY which incidentally serves phenomenal pitchers of raspberry/blackberry margaritas – not that I know that from first hand experience – a little birdie (recovering from severe head trauma as the result of a car accident) told me.

People whose conscience weighs heavily on them for some crime they have committed will often turn to drink.  I know when an evil deed has stained my soul I prefer to drink something fruity and colorful.

Thus ended our road trip, although the Director and the Curator went on another trip the next day to The Hyde Collection in Glens Falls, NY to take a look at what that site did with their window restoration. They used tinted Plexiglas on the interior which they covered with sheer curtains that made the tint practically invisible. The Light Guru created a complicated and extensive artificial lighting system in their rooms that was so genius it is difficult for a visitor to tell where the light in the room comes from.

As of now, taking in all of the observations made on the trips to different sites as well as the opinions of different experts in the field, the Curator is leaning heavily toward blocking the visible light in our museum with shades. There is a meeting scheduled for this Wednesday with our architectural team and a “Shade Lady” after which a final decision will be made as to how we want to tackle the issue of visible light.

The visible light is so bright....I gotta wear shades (or tinted Plexiglas or fiber mesh screens, or...)

And here I thought tinting glass was just for the cars of male teenagers and diplomatic envoys - turns out I was mistaken. Apparently tinted windows are all the rage in the museum world. I found out more than I ever wanted to know about light filtration options for windows this past week.


But I’m confusing you – let me start from the beginning. I talked with the Hammer last week for updates on the progress of the restoration work. He has been working on shoring up the south side of the house – C channels, needle beams are in, most of nogging is out. Hey (Jude) was expected on site to take pictures of the exposed sill to share them with the architectural team so that they can make a determination about what type of sill and post repair is most appropriate. Until the architectural team makes that determination, no sill or post work can be done. Hey (Jude) was also supposed to bring a storm window mock-up for the architects’ approval as well.

View of the South Parlor - site of the next phase of structural work.

Scaffolding in place, check!

C-beams and needle beams in place, check!



Exposed sill in need of some type of repair or replacement the extent of which is not known at this point, check!

 I figured – ‘Whew! This is going to be a short and sweet blog this week!’ Had I talked with The Hammer alone it would have been, and I would have remained blissfully ignorant of The Great Glass Dilemma of ’11. However the Curator accompanied me on my fact-finding mission and when The Hammer mentioned storm windows, she began to ask questions. The questions revolved around the advisability of tinting windows. But the bigger story is UV A, UV B and visible light. I’m well aware of UVA and UVB – they are the reasons that when at the beach I slather on the SPF 107 sunscreen, wear a sweat suit under my bathing suit, and make my children walk around in their snowsuits while they build castles in the sand. Visible light – not as afraid of, mostly because it allows me to see. But visible light is not the innocent little range of electromagnetic radiation that can be detected by the human eye it tries to make itself out to be. While it is true UV A and UV B light causes degradation of material, visible light does its fair share of damage – it fades things.

According to the Curator because we do not need UVA or UVB light to see it can be eliminated almost entirely (hence the SPF 107 and the sweat suit under my bathing suit – my family thinks it’s overkill, I think it is a safe way to enjoy the sun). However we need visible light because without it we can’t see. The museum’s goal then is to reduce the amount of visible light that enters through the windows into the house to the minimum levels necessary to see. The good news is that it seems like any glass will block UV B radiation while applied filters will block UV A. But what to do about that pesky visible light?

Well, what are the options? Aaaah…ha ha – if only that were an easy question to answer. One option is to apply a tint to the exterior glazing of the window to filter out visible light. The percentage of visible light filtration you want dictates the amount of tinting necessary. And don’t think there is only one tinting option out there for glass – there are more, for example, bronze tinting or gray tinting – and I have no idea what either of those two things would look like. Tinted glazing for controlling visible light is usually done in the museum world on interior storms made out of Plexiglas. But the museum is not mounting interior storms, it is mounting exterior storms. And regular glass will not be used in the exterior storm windows – instead the exterior storms will be made with safety glass. The reasoning behind this is simple – we want to protect the historic fabric of the house that we are currently spending mucho dinero to restore. In other words we don’t want a thousand black birds to fall from the sky dead and have a portion of those dead black birds crash through our windows damaging any of the historic material of the house. (Actually we don’t want a thousand black birds falling dead from the sky period – that’s a little too end-of-times for me) Safety glass will break but it won’t shatter all over the place. Besides, the Plexiglas is easily scratched – that’s okay when it’s on the inside, but it would start to look pretty bad on the outside what with its exposure to dead birds falling from the sky, etc.

Darn those Mayans and their calendar!

One of our concerns with tinted exterior storms is the way the house will look with all of that visible light reflecting back off. Sunglasses can make movie stars look cool, or State Troopers look intimidating, but in the case of Cherry Hill it will only succeed in blinding anybody who looks at the house on a bright, sunny day. Rule number one in the Dummies Guide to Historic House Museum Interactions with the Public – do not blind the public. The Curator did wonder if there was an option of applying an anti-reflective coating to exterior tinted storm windows that would reduce the amount of reflection/potential blinding of passerby.

Long after the interrogation of Joe the Hammer had ended, the glass discussion carried on (and on…and on, I’m not kidding – like for the rest of the week). The Director and the Curator mentioned that there are fiber mesh shades that can be mounted on the interior of the window to reduce visible light. Actually, in the interest of full disclosure and since this is supposed to be a helpful and informative blog, the Curator and the Director used their “official” name for these shades: “screeney blinds.” The plus of the “screeney blinds” is that they will block visible light in a non-permanent way; the negative is that they provide a less clear view out of the window they are mounted on. Some staff members (the Curator) were open to the idea of exploring the option, other staff members (the Director) were vehemently opposed and then there were the staff members (the Communications Coordinator) who were stumped over how to spell “screeney” - (“Do I put the third ‘e’ in or do I leave it out?”).

The other option is to continue the method currently in use at the house - blackout shades and UV shades that staff members have to remember to raise for a tour and then lower after tours are over. A little more manual effort certainly but it does the job, once again in a non-permanent way.

Just when we thought we would continue to wander in a forest of UV and visible light uncertainty we found enlightenment. The Curator contacted The Light Guru. The Light Guru answered her questions and gave her a sense of calm where before there had been only a tinting tizzy. The Light Guru is a private conservator who happened to design the HVAC system for the museum’s collections center. The Light Guru explained that the tinting levels we would need might not be available in laminated glass. He explained that if we wanted to go the tinted route that we should get Plexiglas tinted to whatever percentage of filtration we wanted and install that between the historic glass and the exterior storm – the thought being that the exterior windows might look better this way. He suggested that the museum measure the light levels of the windows using a footcandle sensor device or a light meter. (Light is measured in footcandles or lux.) Once we know what amounts of visible light we are dealing with, we will be able to make a better informed decision.

But not to be outdone by the Curator’s window nirvana, the Director pulled a card from up her sleeve and contacted another conservator who has worked with the museum before, via a mini-teleconference (in the interest of protecting her privacy we will refer to her as the Conservator Extraordinaire). The Conservator Extraordinaire actually suggested we contact The Light Guru in the first place and when we talked with her after The Light Guru’s enlightenment, she gave us some food for thought – she suggested the use of tinted Plexiglas on the interior which would lower the amount of light coming in the window, make window treatments last a lot longer and prevent an Apocalypse Now (unless you are a black bird in Arkansas) if a staff member happens to forget to shut any of the blinds or shutters. It is an option of continuous protection that takes the manual labor associated with the UV and blackout shades option out of the equation, and lowers the baseline of visible light that enters a given window.

The Curator, whiz kid that she is, is currently thinking about a different approach to visible light management. The museum could use pull-down blackout shades when it is not open, and when it is open to tours (an optimal time to let visitors have some visible light so they can appreciate their surroundings) the blackout shade would be fully raised. But what about the visible light and the UV A light?!?! Never fear – in addition to the blackout shade would be a fully closed semi-translucent shade which would allow light to enter the room more evenly but in a reduced amount. The museum would use reproduced historic window treatments or adaptations of them for further reduction of light. But just to complicate what seems like a simple straight forward method to deal with visible light, the Curator will explore different options in different rooms of the house. Perhaps in one room, like our Guest Bedroom where the view out the window is part of the tour – maybe tinted Plexiglas would be installed there. All those light measurements The Light Guru suggested will come in handy making these decisions.

After all of the talking and after the advice of the conservators, it became painfully clear to the Director and the Curator what needed to be done……..Road Trip!!! Obviously in order to make the most informed decision possible, in addition to light measurements and advice from the experts, we need to see how these different options look in the real world, or at least the real world of historic house museums. And we also need to buy some snacks for the road. I’m thinking Slim Jims and Cheetos. But no coffee – can you imagine how many bathroom breaks the Director and Curator would have to take on a road trip where they were given coffee in the car? To this end the Director and the Curator have set up some visits to sites this week to help with their research. I have been invited on the trip, and if weather and childcare conditions allow, I will go along for the ride. The only thing I have left to say is “SHOTGUN!” (Sorry Curator but it’s an unspoken rule of the road – whoever shouts SHOTGUN first gets the front passenger seat.)



***Updated Information – We have since found out that it is possible to get laminated glass that is tinted dark enough. The catch is that the extra layer of tinting to the laminated glass “sandwich” may not look well and it may end up being too thick to be physically feasible for the museum’s particular windows.***