29 Sunday Jun 2014
Posted in Gaiety Hollow, Garden, Lord & Schryver, Uncategorized
I seem to decide I won’t post any more construction photos until the reveal, and then Woody sends me some more that are interesting. I thought you might like to see how he is constructing this lattice…remember these?
Yesterday they began to make the grid…
and all of the painted strips will be condensed to make JUST the back of the bench…a section just about 5 feet by 5 feet.
which will go here…
27 Friday Jun 2014
Posted in Gaiety Hollow, Garden, Lord & Schryver
Tags
bench rebuilding, Gaiety Hollow, garden, garden benches, Historic Gardens, lattice, Lord & Schryver
In spite of rain!!! There are always ways around things…
I think I forgot to mention that the work Woody is doing in the garden on the fences, gates and bench has been funded by a “Toolbox Grant” from the City of Salem, administered through the Historic Landmarks Advisory Commission. The grant deadline for completion of the work is July 31st, so Woody is working against the clock…
Yesterday Woody and Christopher worked on rebuilding the bench seat…
and Don Roberts completed all the painting of the strips that will be used to rebuild the back of the bench…the “privacy lattice” so-called for the close arrangement of strips and the small square spaces between.
Woody mentioned that all the strips you see in the photo will be used in just the back of the bench. Stay tuned for “the REVEAL”… And thank you, City of Salem!
26 Thursday Jun 2014
Posted in Gaiety Hollow, Garden, Lord & Schryver, Uncategorized
Tags
fences, Gaiety Hollow, garden, garden benches, Historic Gardens, Lord & Schryver, restoring wooden fences
READERS…many apologies! I was trying to cut and paste Woody Dukes’ excellent emails about the recent repairs of gates and fences and arbors at the garden. Unfortunately all the visuals failed, so here, in my own words is what happened. As Woody began to examine the arbor and several gates, he found the rotten members were in worse shape than he originally imagined. He had to remove the arbor completely to rebuild it, he had to rebuild the gate to the service area, he had to reset posts and cut decorative motifs…i.e. A LOT OF WORK! With the excellent assistance of Christopher Hackett, David Lichter and Don Roberts, the work is coming along nicely. Woody chose not to use pressure-treated posts as they have a modern look, instead to set them in gravel to wick the water away from the posts. He was also able to reuse historic segments froom earlier repairs. In the interest of time (mine AND yours!) I’m just going to include here a long series of process photos without captions, but I think you can readily see what happened! (Sorry for the snafu!!)
The arbor was found to have so much rot that repair would be difficult…
and has he worked along Woody soon discovered that the wood was filled with ants…
the arbor was going to have to be totally rebuilt.
and now it starts to rain for a few days…see you next week!
26 Thursday Jun 2014
Posted in Gaiety Hollow, Garden, Lord & Schryver, Uncategorized
Tags
Gaiety Hollow, Gairty Hollow, garden, garden benches, garden design, Historic Gardens, repair of wooden garden structures
Let me share with you a remarkable series of emails I’ve gotten from our arborist, and master carpenter, Woody Dukes…While I was away Woody and a crew of volunteers have been working on the wooden hardscape in the Gaiety Hollow Garden. Woody’s photos and descriptions are fascinating and fun to follow…the discourse begins in early May as follows:
“Christopher Hackett and I have been working on a couple of projects including yesterday (Tuesday 5/3) morning measuring and cutting pieces of a new gate to replace the rotting one that opens into the Reserve Area.”
“It only changed when I had to do a major repair because the support for the bench, which was sitting on concrete blocks, and attach anchoring cables to the rear posts (around 2010) because the whole structure was tilting into the garden and was approaching structural failure. I had to modify the design by adding a rectangle of 4x4s add more stability to a major portion of the north fence.”
Lord & Schryver Conservancy blog 