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

The balconies from my house really needed attention.

When it arrived, the second floor balconies were all intact....

 

....but a significant part of the first floor balcony was missing and would need to be replaced.

Like the rest of the house, the balustrades were caked with several layers of paint and simply overpainting them wasn't an option.

I'd already removed the balconies to make work on the front of the house easier, so the next step was to separate the balustrades from the rails - most of them came out easily but a few required gentle persuasion. 

Then came 'excavation' to find the original turnings beneath all of the paint.

This involved many evenings sitting with a tray on my lap and chipping and sanding away at them.

It was during this process that I discovered that, just like on this DH/5, the centre section of every alternate balustrade was painted red.

The photo above was taken after 'round one'. When they were all at this stage, I started over again with the chipping and sanding until their original profiles were nice and sharp again and they were smooth enough to paint.

I have to admit that I was sick of the sight of them in the end!

Original balustrade (left) with five of the newly turned copies.

I was of course missing some of the balustrades but luckily my friend's nice neighbour (the same man who turned the finial for the house mentioned in Part Four of my blog) turned some excellent copies from one of my 'excavated' originals. 

Once prepped, I painted all of the balustrades with Farrow & Ball 'Off-White No.3' to match the front of the house. The original balcony rails made excellent holders for the balustrades while they dried.

My next post will be about how I tackled the broken/missing section of the first floor balcony.

Until next time,

Zoe