Home
About
Gallery
Journal
Contact

The Accidental Preservationist

An unexpected journey

From Shopping

12.01.2018

Holiday Guide to Gifts that Give Back – Supporting Historic Preservation in Charleston, SC

Finding the perfect holiday gift for everybody on your list can be a challenge. To help with this endeavor, I complied this holiday gift guide – best of all, these gifts support the preservation and research work being done by three of my favorite organizations here in Charleston, SC: Drayton Hall, The Charleston Museum and…

Keep reading

What is The AP?

Join me on an unexpected journey in restoration and research at the circa 1810 Simon Jude Chancognie House in Charleston, South Carolina and beyond.

Instagram

The shutter hardware curiosities abound here at the Chancognie House, starting with these latches. Evidence of hooks, not shutter dogs (see previous post) confirm that these latches were meant for keeping shutters open, not closed. More shutter mysteries yet to come! #theaccidentalpreservationist #chancogniehouse

Since I am stripping the original shutters on the Chancognie House, this seems like the perfect time for a flashback to stripping the siding last summer which revealed these ghostly shadows in the paint residue. Although the panel shutters on the first floor had long been secured with shutter dogs mounted below the panels, these shadows to the sides of the shutters indicate that they were originally secured with latches. Hardware on the shutters themselves confirms this theory, but as is often the case here, there are many questions - more about that soon! #theaccidentalpreservationist #chancogniehouse

It’s not every day that @unrepentantclassicist takes apart the Chancognie House with a power saw and that is undoubtedly a good thing. But sometimes it is necessary, especially when it comes to removing window sash that have been subjected to decades of caulking. This original sash will be removed, restored, reglazed and reinstalled and hopefully the power saw will not needed again anytime soon. #theaccidentalpreservationist #chancogniehouse

Following up on my post a few weeks ago about the beaded moulding above the first floor door, the paint has been removed and the woodwork lightly sanded. I gently used the riffler file pictured here on the beads - the goal is to just remove the paint residue without affecting the unique character of each hand crafted bead. #theaccidentalpreservationist #chancogniehouse

The Chancognie House is fortunate to have most of its original panel shutters on the first floor. As was typical in the early 19th century in Charleston, the first floor shutters were solid panels for the sake of privacy and security while the shutters on the upper floors were louvered for ventilation. As you can see from this photo, the shutters have accumulated many layers of paint over the years, a situation which I will address in the days to come! #theaccidentalpreservationist #chancogniehouse

While no one enjoys an in the field mochaware mend, such as these tankard fragments from @historiccharlestonfoundation’s Nathaniel Russell House kitchen house dig, more than I do, I am mindful of what I have learned from archaeologists @marthazierden8 and @sarahstroudclarke - archaeology is not about finding stuff. The artifacts are an important part of the analysis, but they are not an end in and of themselves. After the digging concludes next week, the hundreds, if not thousands of artifacts will go to the lab where they will be washed, sorted and catalogued. The artifact data, along with information recorded at the site - notes, photos and soil samples are constantly taken - will then be analyzed and conclusions drawn. What role these sherds play in the overall understanding of this site remains to be seen. #theaccidentalpreservationist