The Gingerbread Transformation

So our gingerbread has been restored!  This has actually been done for a while now...but winter and life got in the way of me posting the 'after' photo.  A huge thank you to Mark Lucking Renovations for doing an amazing job with this incredibly detailed work (and at a way better price than any other quote we received :). 

Pretty great, eh?  In the end, the gingerbread (or vergeboard as I'm told it's actually called) was too rotted to be salvaged without major reinforcing so we opted to laminate new plywood on top of the original vergeboard.  Mark then painstakingly cut out the pattern, using the original wood as a template.  We couldn't be happier with the results!!

Through the painstaking process of removing 120 years worth of latex, oil, and lead paint from the wood Mark also discovered the original colours of the woodwork!  In true Victorian fashion, it was bright red and bright green!  Man oh man, those 19th century Canadians were brave in their colour choices...not like today's beige on beige on beige on taupe...