Restoring a Tri-ang DH/7 Townhouse - Part One

At the end of January this year, I took delivery of a once grand but now down at heel Triang DH/7 "for restoration", as it said in the listing.

Lines Brothers Limited (Tri-ang) DH/7

These houses were amongst the first ever produced by Lines Brothers Limited (Tri-angtois/Tri-ang) when it was formed in June 1919. It's believed that this model was only produced from 1919 to 1921, having never appeared in any of the catalogues or price lists after 1921.*

It's a big old lady at 55" (1.4m) tall, 34"(0.8m) wide and 23½" (0.6m) deep (including the base).

Not only was the house thick with grime and dust when it arrived, but it also had some serious condition problems (which, I have to say, is why I got it for a very reasonable price).

Outside, the lovely turned finial on the top of the roof is missing and I believe there would have been two little chimneys, one on either side of the roof, but they are both missing too. I'm not entirely sure what the roof would have looked like originally, but it has certainly been over-painted.

The railings of the central balcony and a section of the left-hand balcony, both on the first floor, are missing and none of the original glass window-panes have survived.

Though clearly unloved and neglected in more recent years, the evidence points to the house being very much loved throughout most of its one hundred years of existence, with each new generation/owner making it their own. I have found no less than four layers of paint and/or wallpaper on the inside and five layers of paint on the outside!

Only two of the original fireplaces have survived, and the cooking range and dresser are both missing from the kitchen.

Only one internal door remains and quite a few pieces of the trims around them are missing.

Happily, there are odd patches of the original wallpapers to be found (the hexagon wallpaper in the photo above is the original kitchen wallpaper), though these are in varying [mainly dreadful] states of repair - of which, more in a later blog.

Undoubtedly, the worst news was the base. This is what happened when I pressed down on it!

A closer examination of the underside revealed that the plywood top was rotten from both damp and a heavy dose of woodworm. At some point this had spread to the bottom edge of the plywood back of the house too and that was in a similar state of decay.

A few deep breaths were taken - I had never had to tackle anything like this before - but a 'sort of' plan was soon hatched.

Luckily, there was no sign of recent woodworm activity (no fresh-looking holes or frass), nevertheless, the top priority was to remove the base and dispose of the rotten plywood piece.

This proved to be quite a tricky operation because the base was nailed to the sides of the house which have become rather brittle with age in places. Thankfully most of the nails had suffered from damp too and many of them simply snapped, so with some gentle persuasion from a hammer and a pair of pliers, it eventually came off with minimal damage to the body of the house.

I also discovered that the rot and woodworm in the plywood had not spread to the solid wood sides and front of the base (though the rear support had succumbed), so I would be able to re-use them. I have given all of the re-used wood a couple of coats of woodworm treatment - just in case.

Re-using the original front and sides made things considerably easier as I was able to simply reassemble them, cut a new piece of plywood for the top of the base and replace the rear section with solid wood. 

To give the house nice sturdy foundations for years to come, I also took the opportunity to add two cross-braces inside the base. I had only added one when I took the above photo but I subsequently realised that a second one, positioned under the front edge of the internal walls, would make sense too. Lines Brothers really should have done this in the factory but I suppose its priority was to keep production costs down rather than to future-proof against subsidence. 

Everything has been glued and screwed in place - glue simply because it was easier to glue it all in place before screwing it together, and screws rather than nails because I felt they would get a better purchase into the old wood (though pre-drilling holes for the screws was necessary to prevent the wood splitting).

And here is the [sort of] new base reattached to the house - again, glued and screwed - and I have to say that I'm really quite pleased with it!

It's nice to have the original sides as they still have their original oxblood paint - somewhat surprisingly, given the number of makeovers the rest of the house has had - and hopefully I will be able to match it up.

Well, I think that's enough for one post. There has been more progress but I think I need to break it down into reasonably small posts to avoid sending even the most interested of readers to sleep!

Until next time,

Zoe

*Information from The Book of Tri-ang Dolls' Houses 1919 to 1971 by Marion Osborne.