USC Physical Education Doors

Before and After pictures of restored doors at the USC Physical Education Building.  Its amazing how much better the doors look with the appropriate hardware!

‘We Love LB’ Mural will be reused at the Meeker Baker building

Photo by Gary Friedman

Photo by Brian Addison

Large murals that used to grace the facades of the Meeker Baker and Press Telegram buildings as they sat vacant will be repurposed and reinstalled by David Van Patten and James Carey at the renovated Meeker Baker building.

Read more at the Long Beach Post

Bonus #TBT Los Angeles Police Academy

For some reason this one didn’t post last week, so we get 2 this week!

 

 

You might recognize our newest project from the intro to the original Charlie’s Angels tv series. We started documentation of the Los Angeles Police Academy this week in anticipation of the upcoming renovation.

#TBT Huntington Mansion

We’ve worked on several projects at The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens over the years, but in 2008 we completed extensive restoration work on the original mansion (now the art gallery) including window, door and architectural woodwork restoration; decorative iron work restoration; plaster, cast stone, concrete and limestone restoration, color analysis and consulting; painting of all surfaces.

 

COMPLETED PROJECT: Mayfield Senior School Copper Door Restoration

Mayfield Senior School was originally founded in 1931 by the Society of the Holy Child Jesus, and is a private, all female, college prep school in Pasadena, CA.  The house at the heart of the campus was built between 1914-1919 and was known as the Marshall-Eagle Estate.  The property was purchased for the Society of the Holy Child Jesus by Dr. Charles and Vera Strub in 1950.

We were contacted a few months ago to see if we could save a pair of original copper and glass doors.  The existing doors were pretty far gone: missing handles, missing trim, numerous holes and old patches in the copper cladding, deteriorated wood, mismatched hardware, etc.  However, they couldn’t merely be replaced, because installing new doors would mean the opening would have to be upgraded to meet the current building codes.  So instead, we took the doors back to our shop and got to work on the meticulous restoration:

• repaired the deteriorated wood core
• replaced the non-salvageable copper cladding
• repaired existing trim and replaced missing trim
• patina’d old and new copper to match
• reproduced a missing handle
• installed new slimline door closers

The existing copper doors before restoration.

One of the original handles was long gone.

Newer polished brass door hardware did not coordinate with the historic doors.

After the copper cladding was removed, we repaired the water damaged wood core.

Copper doors after restoration was completed

Can you tell which handle is the reproduction?

New slimline door closers were installed and existing brass hardware was refinished to better coordinate with the historic door.

We’re pretty happy with the results, and the school is ecstatic that we could save their beautiful doors.