The Restoration Project
The Barnton Hotel Restoration Project in Edinburgh brought an empty and abandoned hotel back to life. The building had been empty for years. Luckily, it was bought to be redeveloped into residential flats and a care home before it fell into total decay.
Without a doubt, 2014 was going to be a very busy year for me. Page/Park Architects in Glasgow along with CCG Scotland Ltd, the contactors, commissioned me to replace much of the exterior specialist joinery on the hotel building. Most of the detailed woodwork was beyond restoration or saving which meant I had a lot of work to do.
The Restoration Work
I made replacement finials and pendant finials in reclaimed Scots pine using original surviving joinery as templates. All were turned by hand in the workshop. I used new red wood to make the decorative gable trusses and soffit posts, again copied from surviving originals. The exterior balustrading and handrails, however, I made from hardwood. A few of the original balusters survived and only needed simple restoration work.
The work for the Barnton Hotel restoration project I carried out in my workshop. I delivered it in stages and the contactors fitted all the joinery themselves on site.
We did some research too. The original colour for the paintwork came from a hand tinted postcard from 1905 which we found online. We used this colour for the final finish!
All exterior images above courtesy of Sylvia D’Arcy.