So excited my Florida daughter is in town.  I haven’t had a chance to see her yet, she and her sister went to The College World Series yesterday.  As always when Florida comes to town the weather isn’t cooperating.  Rain delays etc.  

After weeks of planing, spiffing, power washing and planting the  yard really looks lovely and entertaining ready.  Well, perhaps not today.  We’re due for another round of heavy thunder storms today.  Florida will be tied up all day tomorrow and leaving on Sunday so best laid plans!  This is what the the deck currently looks like. 

 Luckily we decided to tarp the outdoor rug before the storms so we wouldn’t have a soggy mess when the weather finally cleared.  It’s times like this when I miss my vinyl floor cloth! 

A few weeks ago in summer preparation we tackled a piece of antique ginger bread that was in desperate need of some repair.

You can see, I left it out in the elements during the very snowy winter. 

I just love these pieces of architectural salvage that I have collected over the years.  I always wonder about the properties they came from.  I wonder about the people who walked past these bits of whimsy every day, the storms they withstood.  This one piece that frames the entrance to the yard, I picked up at an antique shop here in Omaha many years ago.  It was due for a coat of chalk paint so I took it down to paint and realized that it also need some glue and clamps!

The spindles had loosened and the bottom piece was in jeopardy of falling off.  There was also a break you can see below.  I gave it a quick sanding with my orbital sander.

and painted it with a dry brush in Amy Howard One Step Chalk Paint   We dug out the clamps and the wood glue and had our way with her. 

Sometimes when gluing things up you feel like an extortionist trying to get the clamps in just the right location to create a secure bond. 

It helps to have many different size clamps in your arsenal when doing this type of work.   I’ve been known to use up to 6 clamps to put something back together!  Be sure to wipe away any glue that seeps out from clamping with a damp cloth.  Much easier to clean it while it’s wet then to try and sand it away later. We let her rest overnight with the clamps and the next day she was secure and ready to go back up to her pride of place at the entrance to the garden.

This was really a very easy fix and didn’t take any time at all.  Maybe 30 minutes tops and then of course the drying time.  I don’t know why I’m obsessed with these crazy bits of history but I do feel a responsibility to keep these small works of art in good working order.  I like to think the craftsman who created this ginger bread would be thrilled that his work is still enhancing if not a front porch, but a deck 125 years after he created it.  Once more hanging with pride at an entrance to a garden.

Do you have a love of architectural salvage or a love of old?  Leave me a comment about your salvage finds.

Thanks for stopping

Shelley