New parts for old houses-Woodminstrel Woodparts

Today is your lucky day.
If you have been searching high and low for a few odd wooden parts or half a household full of decent woodwork, stop looking for a while, we are here to help. If you live in an old house it is a one-of-a-kind house and the main reason it survived these many decades is simple. It's because it's a lovely home. Many of the decorative elements that make your home so special were made right there- on the spot- with hand tools by carpenters who knew how to work. That's why it's called "woodwork". The guys who put your house together are long gone and many of the secrets of good craftsmanship and design that these people understood disappeared with them.
You live in a handmade home. It deserves respect. In the monster building centers with their forklifts and weekly fliers and bleeping cash registers you will not find one stick of woodwork that comes close to doing justice to the wonderful old building you call home. So, tell us what you need, and don't forget to You'll be doing us and yourself a favor. One more thing, (hello, whoever you are....) we live on a budget and we understand that you do too. So, before you get panicky about the cost of custom woodwork, remember we have a very low overhead. Our building and the machinery it houses is all paid for, we heat this place with wood scraps, and we have excellent sources of native lumber right here in the neighborhood.
So, let's get busy and do some woodwork.

Working from samples, drawings or photographs, we custom manufacture exact duplicate wood parts for old buildings. We also make unusual wooden parts for new buildings. Let us know what you can’t fix or find and we will make it for you. We will work in any wood you specify to precisely correspond to the original woodwork. If we can be of help to you, please contact the owner, Daniel Prendergast.

WOODMINSTREL Woodparts is an economical source for one-of-a-kind wooden parts. We do not charge a design fee nor do we charge for tooling. We recognize these expenses as 1) a necessary cost of doing business and 2) as a way to expand our ability to better meet the future demands of the restoration market. We do this for fun and profit and we are here to serve you. We are:

Fast- Whether you need one single spindle to repair a cradle in time for a new arrival or a porch full of posts, railings and balusters, in time to impress all of your friends and relatives, we will get the job done to fit your timetable, within reason.

Accurate- We match parts in every detail, from the species of wood to the shapes and sizes that fit your old house. Where all of the architectural details are completely gone without a trace or where you may want old style elements for a new house, we will help you find designs that fit your vision.

Reasonable-
Custom woodwork should not be a green light for extreme prices. It’s not rocket science, it’s just woodwork and it really should be priced to fit your budget. You may expect to pay more for high quality parts that are of greater substance than the contemporary run of the mill, but we try to price our services to fit your home.

It is not unusual for a banister in an old house to be missing a spindle or two. Maybe one of them broke in two when the movers handling the grand piano took the top turn too tight. Or several popped out like missing teeth when some indoor sports nut broke free from the half-nelson his big brother expertly applied on the middle landing. Or three of them got wrenched loose after getting entangled with the fire hose when..............you get the picture. (This is beginning to sound like an excess of testosterone.) But the question is, where do you shop for the identical replacement spindle? And why would you settle for anything but the identical item?

Once upon a time, steamboats served as real transportation up and down America’s waterways. Many of these boats, to be fair, were rather common in appearance. But nobody ever sketched a portrait of a common steamboat. The steamboats that steam on in our memories were waterborne variations of the architectural style known as Italianate. Common to this elaborate building style was the piazza, or two story porch. Cut (or sawn) balusters figured quite prominently in this design motif. Sawn balusters are enchanting due to the interplay and the illusion, of positive and of negative shapes, looking now at the balusters and now at the spaces between them. Endless in variety, these balusters make a genuine, lively statement while at the same time serving the entirely practical purpose of safety.

There are many reasons why one or more porch posts on an old house may need replacement. How about a car crash. A porch post may be rotten to the core from dry rot or lunch for termites. Or your house may be graced by a dandy gingerbread porch with plain 4x4 posts as a contemporary enhancement. A variation on this theme is the tasteful embellishment of “wrought iron” trellis-work. In situations like this, sometimes on the front of the building there may be a pair of surviving half-posts. This is a good start. Drawing upon these remnants as models, a venerable old porch may reclaim its original character and once again become the focal point of the building’s exterior.

The argument against ornate porches is maintenance. Left to the elements, anything, ornate or otherwise, goes to pieces. For lack of a paintbrush and something to dip it in, many an old porch has long since become nothing more than a memory. Some of our beautiful old buildings show the trace of a demolished porch where some long-forgotten painter got a little sloppy with the whitewash. You may read its outline in the brick, but to flesh out the facade in its original glory sometimes requires a trip to the local library or to the historical society in a hunt for old photographs. If the hunt is successful, and you decide to rebuild the porch, send the photos to us. We like porches.

Some things never seem to change. The beauty of a sunset, the sound of children playing in the park, the taste of lemonade on a hot summer afternoon. But some things do change. For example, every other generation or so, we change the way we heat our homes or perhaps the way we decorate our floors. So as you are sipping your iced lemonade on a warm summer evening while the kids are out to play, and you have just finished tearing up all that pre-berber, sculpted nylon carpet-that-never-dies which camouflaged the return duct of yesteryear- that hole that was covered over with bits of crating material- tomorrow’s challenge will be to locate a source of oak or maple flooring parts that precisely match the original. We can help.

One hundred or more years ago, long before Kmart and wash&wear, people didn’t have as many clothing options. The typical citizen of the year 1899 had one outfit to wear, one outfit in the wash, and one outfit reserved for funerals and other social occasions. People got by with a lot less clothes to wear and therefore one thing they didn’t miss was closets. The challenge in building a new closet where one never existed is to find woodwork that blends. After all, the clothes you wear are designed to blend into whatever social situation for which they were intended. Your house is unique and in order to keep it that way, you may need several linear feet of a particular molding. Tell us about your project and we will be happy to provide you with whatever moldings you may need.

One fine sunny Saturday morning, a hardworking, upbeat vinyl siding salesman sold the last owner of your house a priceless vision of maintenance-free living. “The first thing we’ll do is we’ll knock down those brackets.” So the ornate 19th century gave way to the trouble-free late 20th century and very nearly gave up its soul in the process.

One thing that may be admitted in favor of vinyl siding is that it protects the outer skin of the house from the elements. So when you peel the stuff off, you can count the number of brackets and dental moldings and so forth that used to create such a defining pattern to the exterior of the building. It is very easy to get an accurate measurement of the design elements that are missing. With a photograph of the residence in its original grandeur, perfect replacement details may be accurately made-to-order. Of course the simplest way to do this with a sample of the original details.

In the days before form followed function (and we were glad of it), people liked to add whimsical touches to their homes. Life was a whole lot more grim in those days with a higher infant mortality and epidemics that swept through otherwise healthy populations and created nothing but grief. So people had a real incentive to decorate their homes in wild and unusual ways. The radical woodwork of the nineteenth century is an expression of hopeful aspirations- aspirations of happiness and of good health and of good cheer.

Back in those nearly-forgotten days, a happy marriage was a thing people actually expected, not some sort of one-in-a million long shot. The woodwork of even the smallest cottage reflected this lovely vision. It said “ This is a happy home.”. Fretwork spandrels serve no useful purpose beyond being an absolute delight to the eye.

Look at any musical instrument and what do you see? You see curves. Go to any music hall older than 50 years of age and what do you see? You see curves. There's a connection. Hard, flat surfaces are hard on the ears. (Did you ever take notice of the many curves in the human ear?) So when you want a special place for the grand piano, or you want to step down into an acoustically wonderful room, think about curved surfaces and curved steps. The music is bound to sound better in a room with curves and your ears will thank you for it.