This month’s renovation begins with three handy-men, two pots of paint, one calligrapher and a whole lot of sand paper as we endeavour to complete the interior of the passenger side of our carriage.
The start of this month saw a break from the calligraphy-ing, and instead saw us try to breathe new life into the carriage in the form of mountains of sand paper and a small collection of different varieties of sanding machines (which, for the most part, are either broken from overwork or have been bought in advance to be broken – we are currently Homebase’s new favourite customers!).
Before
It became quickly apparent that, what with the new wood from the carpenter on the most of the lower parts of the carriage, and with the new paint and varnish being applied to all of four walls of the passenger side, that the ceiling’s state was letting the carriage’s appearance down drastically. So, mid-calligraphy-ing it was decided that the ceiling would need to be stripped of all of the old parts of wood, all makeshift paint work that the owner before us threw at it, and all of the (relatively dangerous) original lead paint from when the carriage was first made. This was of course no mean feat, and the task managed to take up most of this month’s entirety to complete! Not to mention this month’s budget which was just about all used up on relatively useless sanding machines that, by and large, were obviously not made for the task at hand! Nevertheless, the ceiling, as it stands, looks much better than it originally did as I’m sure you’ll be able to tell from our before and after images.
After
Once the ceiling was significantly smoother and better looking, and the carriage was covered in a sufficient layering of dust, paint particles and rubbish, we were finally able to get back to the calligraphy. Once the letting was drawn out equally on all of the doors and walls of the passenger side of the carriage, and all was sufficient enough to meet boss’ requirements, we were able to start painting the carriage walls.
Now, normally a simple task such as that of calligraphy s
houldn’t seem so hard for a group of engineers, but, when theres layers of dust caped and covered onto all the surfaces of the carriage, it can make the paint extremely hard to stay in place and look half decent. With this in mind, and half of the calligraphy done on one side of the carriage, we had to completely re-do one of the walls to ensure that the paint would stay in place for years to come (much to the calligraphers annoyance). However, once re sanded and re drawn, we were able to re-draw and paint the calligraphy on the doors and walls so that it replicated how it would have looked originally. (On our Facebook page you are able to see this step-by-step process). The calligraphy has not yet been done on all of the doors and walls yet, as this will take a lot of time to get right, but here is how it is looking so far.
Hopefully next month all of our calligraphy will be done and the carriage won’t be in such a mess! Thank you so much for reading the blog this month, and if you have read others then welcome back to our page. If you’re interested in following the renovation of our carriage in more detail, or would like to ask questions and give feedback, please feel free to like and share our Facebook page with friends and family.
