Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Cottage Grove Armory

Armory Entrance.

One of my next projects, the beautiful art deco Cottage Grove Armory building.  Built in 1931 as a National Guard armory and community center.  Oculus has been contracted to restore 35 of the worst windows over the next 10 months.  Cottage Grove is a nice small town a little bit south of Eugene.  It is centrally located in the Willamette Valley.  Here is a link for more information about Cottage Grove.

The windows are typical 6 over 6  and 4 over 4 double-hungs.  One of the details that I really like about them are the weight pocket doors.  I rarely see them cut on the diagonal.  I will post more pictures of these as the restoration progresses. 

Weight pocket door.

Some of the window details that I am not so excited to see is the lack of flashing between the sills and the concrete which has lead to a lot of complete sill failures.  Also the ends of the sills are buried in a small pocket of concrete.  Not so good either.

Sill end rotted out.


Complete sill failure.

Right now the project is in the assessment stage.  So there is a lot of work to be done over spring and summer.  Most of the physical work will happen in the late spring and summer months.  I will be utilizing both epoxy and dutchman repairs so I need those warm temperatures and rainless days.

I want to mention my new camera.  Over the summer I worked on a consulting job where the conservator was using a Panasonic Lumix to photograph windows.  The quality and ease of use promoted me to purchase one recently (and it wasn't too pricey either).  I have to say that I am very pleased with the results so far.  The picture below is a second story window but I shot is from the parking strip.  I still had a lot of zoom left.



Shortly I will post about another exciting project that I will be working on over the next 12 months.   This project will stretch my plane-making skills as I will be making two matched curved and sprung sash planes.  Check back in to see what all that means.  

As a little tease here is the view from the jobsite.