It takes a team to accurately restore a historic home, and we have a talented one. It takes  historical knowledge, creativity, patience, curiosity experience and communication skills as well as historical images, documentation and a willingness to research.  Today a big part of our team, Joel Rafferty of Michael Abraham Architecture, Casey Fafrowicz our carpenter, and Kevin Scheck from Scheck Lumber Company    are combining all of our resources to make some decisions on what to save, what to discard , what to repair and what to replicate.

The Orland P Bassett House has been around since 1899. It survived two major renovations and more than a few bad trends over the years.

Just because something was there before the fire doesn’t mean it needs to be recreated.

Michael Abraham and the current home owners researched images and documents from Hinsdale Historical Society and National Registrar of Historic places to create accurate plans for the renovation before Dave and I became involved, but we still need to fill in a few of the missing details. So today, the team will be exploring the old garage.

To most, the garage was disorganized junk pile. To us, it was a treasure hunt. Forget the dust, the dark and the spider webs. This place is loaded with goodies that help piece together the story of the Orland P Bassett house. Plus there’s a cool cupola.

 

We found original radius window sashes, doors, corbels and other fun details to use as templates to recreate the old details.

Some were pretty obvious; others took a bit of piecing together. We used old plans, historical pictures (tiny versions of which were stored on Dave’s phone) and our imaginations to make sense of it all.

We pieced together the gable on the old dormer that we will have to rebuild. Kevin will use these as templates to replicate them. Casey needs this info to frame the eaves that will accept the crown moldings and dentil work. It takes a team to accurately restore a historic home.