Restoration

Historic Replication Specialists

For 25 years, The Cedar Guild  collected pictures as well as actual shakes and shingles from historic buildings. Our archives include one sample dating back to 1702, taken from the outside wall of Christ Church in Shrewsbury, New Jersey.

Our goal was to make a record of that portion of our history when wooden shakes and shingles were widely used.  We have information from historical societies as well as our own research that we use to help public and private property owners with their restoration work.

Our replications are accurate and meet the Secretary of the Interior's Guidelines for Rehabilitation of Historic Properties for Investment Tax Credit. Many states require job bidders to use our guidelines for acceptable bidding specifications for quoting historic restoration jobs.

For example, in 1990, we met the D. A. R. requirements to make the replacement shingles for Pres. Harrison's House in Vincennes, Indiana. These shingles were 4" wide and had a round pattern cut on the butts. We also sent them to the treatment plant for fire retardation treatment.

We made the narrow diamond shaped patterned shingles used to reroof the towers of the Later Day Saints’ Tabernacle in St. George Utah. These were treated with fire retardation before they were installed.

The patterned shingles available in lumberyards today are all 18" long, 1/2" on the butt and 4 15/16" wide. There are 6 - 9 different patterns. Many stores carry pre-stapled or glued 2' x 8' interlocking panels with the shingles exposed at 7 1/2" (butt line to butt line).

At the turn of the century, there were 27 different grades of shingles made in the US and Canada. On December 1, 1931, the US Department of Commerce reduced these to 3 standard grades of shingles.

We can contact shingle mills that will cut almost any kind of shingle to duplicate your material. Then we can cut the pattern you need on these shingles. This means that you don't have to strip off any of the good shingles still on your building when you have a restoration job to do.  We can match them so your repair job fits seamlessly.

Historical restoration work has no set width for the shingles and the exposure varies from job to job. Patterns and exposures also vary from region to region, craftsman to craftsman. In early times, each itinerant craftsman had his own patterns and designs. They carried these patterns with them and cut them on treadle powered jigsaws or by hand with coping saws.

This is where The Cedar Guild can help. We can make replications of almost any pattern and width because we use adjustable hand tools.

The following story about the James' house tells how our specialty work, designed for their porch and roof repairs, made it possible to restore the original looks of their cottage style home. Mr. James and his fiancée bought the little house and wanted to get it fixed up before their marriage.

The house, located in one of the four historic districts in Salem, Oregon the state capital, had been neglected. Previous owners had remodeled several areas, including the roof, which had had a dormer added to the North, or street side, above the front porch.

The owners found photographs in the State archives, which had been taken in the early 1900's when the house was new. Patterned shingles had been used in the front gable. These were still present on the house. Missing were the fish scale patterned shingles around the mansard porch roof edges and from the last few rows at the top the hipped roof. There was also a flat widow's walk at the intersections of the valleys and the hips of the roof.

Michael Quesada, owner of Complete Roofing Service, was hired to restore the roof. We worked with Mike on several specialty roofs in the past and he asked The Cedar Guild to advise him on how the roof could be replicated.

When we looked at the roof, it was covered with composition angle lap shingles laid over old cedar shingles. We compared the old photographs with the house. The patterned shingles in the front gable were the originals and were 6" wide. This was a clue as to how wide the fish scale shingles should be for the roof. Craftsmen during that time in Salem usually used the same width shingles throughout their work, even if they changed the shape of the pattern.

When Mike ordered the standard shingles plus enough patterned shingles for the porches and roof, we suggested that the shingles be treated with CCA Sunwood™ pressure treatment. This is a pleasant warm brown color, rather than the greenish color most CCA wood is before it fades to gray. In this old neighborhood, the yards and houses are shaded with large old trees and shrubs that shade the roofs. Shade and lack of sufficient air circulation around and over the roof would cause rot and moss problems on untreated shingles.

Mike stripped off all the old roofing materials, including the dormer that had been added on to the roof. The sheathing under the dormer was replaced and other repairs were made to the roof underlayment.

The metal for valleys and flashings were replaced with new copper. A series of special straps were fastened onto the roof decking at the eave line. Later, after the roof was shingled, the eave troughs (gutters) could be attached with out having the hanging straps exposed on the top of the shingles.

Laying the patterned shingles presented a challenge for Mike. We talked him through laying out patterns so they worked out evenly.

(There are a couple of tricks to putting on patterned shingles. It is important to plan ahead to keep patterns centered and to make the corners come out looking right. The most important thing to decide is where the eye is going to look for centering of the pattern. For example, in a gable, it is important to have a whole pattern  piece end up in the peak of the gable, so the rows have to be laid out with this in mind. On walls where there are windowsills or door lintels, patterns must line up appropriately with those established lines in the wall. The horizontal adjustments are incorporated gradually in each row as they are put on the wall.)

In the case of the porch, Mike found that the outside corners of the mansard porch was where the eye was drawn, so he planned to "lace" whole and half patterns there.  We showed him how to make  "Boston laced" corner for the porch.

When the roof was done, the house looked just like the old photographs. A fresh coat of paint, some trimmed shrubs, flowers around the porch and stairs and the cottage was ready to welcome the James' home after their honeymoon.

The last time we checked, the roof still looked clean and trouble free. The cottage fits perfectly into its historic place in the community.