We're excited that Worcester Eisenbrandt (WEI) is back on site! They started last week and will work through the end of April on the southern side of the William Brown House. Their goal is to repoint the bricks/mortar, clean and repaint the wooden trim, and repair/preserve all of the windows. After the southern side is finished, WEI will move inside to fix some deteriorated joists in the attic, remove plaster so that we can see the tavern-related passthrough on an interior wall, and repaint/preserve the tavern room door.
As the images below show, the work on the windows can't come soon enough. We believed that these windows, by being on the southern side (most weather-protected), would not need too much preservation work. Well, it may be that we're wrong on that score. One of the windows has a lot of deteriorated wood and junk material in it. It is the space above the window frame below the arched brickwork.
If you look closely, you'll see a lot of insect eggs and other trash.
Something else that is interesting is that there appears to be ship-style caulking (oakum) at the top of the space. We just discovered it this week so we do not know exactly how old it is. It is a small surprise and something we will look at more closely.
You'll see that we also disturbed some ladybugs that had nestled into the window framing for their winter hibernation.
The project has just started, so we will keep you all updated as the next 5-6 weeks go by.
All of the work described above is just the first phase of this project. Our second phase, starting this summer, will be focused on upgrading the HVAC and electrical systems. We expect at least 4-6 months of engineering work and research to occur first to help us decide how best to upgrade these systems. So, we do not expect any of that work to start until later this year.
Knowing exactly how the electrical and HVAC systems will be upgraded is necessary for our tavern bar project. There is a circuit breaker box, our alarm system, and other HVAC controls near the passthrough and tavern bar area. Before we can start to reconstruct the bar, we need to know if we can move those controls and systems or if they have to remain where they are. Since this will take another 6-8 months to figure out, we do not have any immediate plans to start reconstruction of the bar.
This work is being funded through the State of Maryland's bond bill program, Anne Arundel County, the Maryland Heritage Area Authority, Preservation Maryland, and some great donors.