Reinstalling the Medallions
My friend Todd has put in yeoman work restoring the medallions, and last week and this he has been working at the house getting ready to reinstall them. This is a massive favour he is doing us, as his work as a decorative plasterer usually involves Venetian plaster finishes rather than overwrought Victorian ornament.
In the fall I purchased hangers for the medallion light fixtures, and the general contractor was a little puzzled by them. Todd sorted that out and installed them last week, repairing the ceiling drywall around them (I think this is now the fourth time that poor ceiling has been cut open and patched).
Today he touched up the ceiling paint where he'd made the patch, just to make the process of touching up around the medallions less painful. While he did that, I went into the basement and painted the medallions we have here (there's another we can pick up from a plaster restorer in San Francisco tomorrow).
When last we saw these medallions, they were under many coats of paint and looking quite grim. Todd painstakingly stripped them, patched up the missing bits, and made them look totally freaking amazing, if I may say so.
This one is from the front parlour. The back parlour has a similar medallion with a somewhat simpler design.
What's interesting to me is that the front parlour medallion has the ring of morning glory vines around it that are on separate pieces that go around the center cone, while the back parlour medallion's ring of morning glories is cast integral with the center cone.
The interesting part is that the back parlour medallion is actually a new one: Todd found the same medallion at the plasterer's in San Francisco and arranged a trade where she gave him a new one in exchange for getting to copy our dining room medallion.
The other two medallions are the front bedroom:
Now no longer in a million pieces! This looks remarkable good for a medallion that was literally scraped off the ceiling and thrown away.
And the front hall:
This one was not damaged or even excessively painted, but it sure cleaned up nice.
I spent the afternoon in the basement painting those medallions, which was a bit of a touchy job to get them painted without globs and get all the tight odd spots painted. When I came upstairs, the light was looking amazing.
Other things that have happened in the last couple weeks: the heating system is up and running, the island is being assembled, the front stairs have been rebuilt yet again, and we are getting closer to figuring out a move-in date.
posted by ayse on 02/20/19