It’s Not Just a Stairwell.
It’s an Irreplaceable Antique.
Trust Oak Brothers to Properly Restore and Preserve Your Home’s Stairway
All Architectural Elements in Historic Buildings are Inherently Valuable Because of Their Antique Status
This stairwell is more than 100 years old. That’s the age at which wood officially acquires antique status. Most wood-based architectural elements in historic homes have either reached this status or are well on their way towards achieving it.
Recognition of a vintage stairwell or some other architectural element as the irreplaceable antique that it is sets it apart as something deserving of more care than it might otherwise receive.
That’s why, when we established our procedures for restoring architectural elements, we drew upon our thirty years of experience restoring antique furniture to develop procedures and practices for restoring these elements.
Our Smithsonian-Inspired Restoration Process
Drawing upon training from the Smithsonian Institute and 30 years of experience restoring furniture, we have adapted the skills and practices of furniture restoration to now apply to the restoration of your historic architectural elements.
Our procedures include the following:
- Structural repairs to recover stability.
- Repair or reproduction of original joinery
- Conservation or reproduction of original moldings.
- Adherence to the preservation/ restoration principle that, whenever possible all repairs be reversible.
- Period appropriate stain formulas and finishing materials.
- Reproduction of carved elements
- Conservation of original finishes and reproduction with period appropriate finishes
- Restoration of original elements with as minimal replacement of original material as possible
- Replacement of “composition” reproductions formed in vintage molds.
Given the antique status of most original architectural elements in a historic building, all of them are candidates for restoration. Nevertheless, budgets don’t always allow for such wholesale restoration. In such a case, we recommend focusing on those elements most worthy of the comprehensive attention required to restore an element as close as possible to its original condition. In this case, we encourage building owners to focus on those elements which have the greatest value–the architectural gems.