New Gingerbread for the House

Good morning,

We are having our 100 year old house painted again and it is quite a process.  When we moved in 40 years ago one of the "flowers" was missing beneath one of the windows.  See the image above.  We've had the house painted several times in those years, but never had anything to replace the missing flower.  Above is a "before" the power washing and re-painting picture.

Here's a close up of the "flower" that has not weathered the years well.

When the piece was removed, we discovered

it was made of plaster.  A common method of holding plaster together in the last century was by adding horse hair to the mixture.  We attempted to count the number of layers of paint, but weren't able to get an accurate count.  This piece of plaster had been held in place by one nail for more than 100 years.

My Honey engraved new flowers of wood to replace all of flowers.

He has painted them with primer

and here are four new ones mounted in place after power washing off the old paint and with the new blue paint and white paint on the house.  The flowers will get another coat of white paint.  There are three similar windows on the front of the house.

We are having the work done by our friend Bill's company this time.  This time it is being done right!

Lois