|
By: Sean Bolen (with help from Jennifer)
| |
| 
|
|  |
| Above, filming of the
installation of the Anaglypta on the stairway. Below, Sean Bolen works on his
house in preparation for the arrival of the DIY cast and crew. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Remember when you were a kid and you would shove just a little too much food into your mouth; remember how you felt just a little foolish when you couldn't actually chew it? That's how I felt when the Do-It-Yourself Network came to our house on March 1st and 2nd.
I had gotten a phone call from a location scout 3 weeks earlier. She was very interested in our project and set up a time where the producers could come by the house. The producers came, liked what they saw, and had several ideas of what they could do for a show there, however their ideas did not interest us in the least.
So our work began trying to convince them otherwise. When they talked about fixing the ¼ inch gap at the bottom of our pocket doors we talked about hanging a tin ceiling. When they mentioned taking up the old air vents and patching them back with oak, we talked about laying a brick sidewalk. In the end, we had all decided on hanging Anaglypta dado panels under an oak chair-rail, not only through our front and back foyers, but up the staircase, and through the hallway upstairs. However, there was a slight problem with that, and that is where I bit off a little more than I could chew.
To explain let me tell you about our house: We purchased our home last spring after she had been sitting empty for eighteen years. When we first looked at the house there were holes in the roof so bad that when it rained; it would not only leak onto the floors upstairs, but through them and onto the floors downstairs. After we purchased the house, we put a new roof on, put the chimneys back up (they had been taken below the roofline), completely upgraded the gas, electric and plumbing, upgraded the kitchen, added heat and air, and then, as we knew that it would, the money ran out and we began to do the remaining work ourselves. Six months after living in the house we finally got ceilings (before then we would look up at rafters at night), we've rewired lights, repaired the plaster and sometime in there had a little girl (Isabella Rain Bolen). Isabella's great with the construction, power saws and compressors don't bother her a bit, but oddly a sneeze will startle her almost to the point of crying.
The problem that I was facing with the producers was that the walls in the foyer had yet to be repaired. Some of the plaster had buckled and had to be reattached, there were huge holes (ah, the signes of upgrades electric…)that had to be patched, and there was one crack above our double doors that was four inches wide. During the course of the last year I have been rather successful with plaster repair, and I can make very rough walls look smooth again, however, it is a very slow process, because of other obligations it takes me a good month to finish a room. The producers wanted me to get it done in two weeks and of those two weeks I really only had three days to spend on it. The simple reply I gave them after they asked if I could get it done in time: "Sure".
I had worked out a schedule to get everything done when they started to add a little more work. Could I paint my dining room? Could I rewire a light? Could I hang some trim? Could I meet them earlier for an afternoon of shoots? And the questions they were asking were not the ones that you actually had a choice in, they were rhetorical. The answer was 'yes' before they called; they were just politely informing us.
And after much work, little sleep, too much complaining, and vast amounts of patience from Jennifer; I managed to get all of the work done. The day that the producers came over for the pre-shoot the paint was still wet.
Now Jennifer and I are not experts in construction, but we have become quite handy within the last year (we had to learn quickly, we knew nothing when we bought the house…). We've hung ceilings, installed cabinets, repaired joyces, and leveled doors. In short, we are no longer novices; we now know just enough to give us the confidence to tackle a project that we really should think twice about. And this is why some parts of the show were difficult.
For the show we filmed the pilot for a new DIY series called 'Restoration Realities', which should begin airing in August. The hosts of the show had never been on television before (this made some of the takes longer), and the crew had not worked together before (stretching the filming even longer). All in all I believe we spent close to 30 hours filming for a 30 minute show.
For the show, duties had been divided between Jennifer and me. I was to go upstairs and learn how to repair plaster (very important, admittedly, but who repaired all of the other walls in the house? Elves?), and Jennifer was to hang the Anaglypta.
Before I continue let me give you a short history of Anaglypta: Anaglypta is a pressed cotton material similar to Lincrusta (lincrusta, is more durable, but is very difficult to work with; lincrusta is made out of linseed). Anaglypta was developed in the 1880's as an economic means of hanging textured ornamentation over plaster walls. The pattern that we used was the same pattern, printed in the same mill, that was used in Europe over 100 years ago.
So Jennifer started to hang the Anaglypta. It was fairly easy; it went on with glue, like the older wallpapers. What made that project a little difficult was that the dado pattern had to run up the staircase, since the patters were long and thin, and we didn't want to break them up, we had to cut them in such a way that they would blend with the patterns throughout the rest of the house. This took time (and a role of mistakes…I'm not quite convinced that the 'expert' they hired didn't exaggerate a little on his resume), but they did get it done. Almost. What had started out as a rather large project had to be cut down, and by the end of the two day shoot they had only hung the Anaglypta up the staircase, and then only to the landing.
My project was the plaster repair. The wall that I had prepared earlier (the wall we had all agreed upon), turned out to be no good for the crew the night before, so I had to get another wall ready. It was not necessarily a difficult job, it only took about three hours, but they did not inform me until 7:00 at night, when the crew was showing up again just twelve hours later. I also had a lot of trim work to prep. It was another night without sleep.
One of the frustrating things about doing the show was that we had to look a little unskilled. Actually, we had to look worse than unskilled. Being an educational, how-to show, everything had to be explained. And to keep all of us involved we had to pretend that we had no idea how to do a thing (however, it was a little much when they told Jennifer that 'you know it's level when the bubble is between the lines…').
Now I do not want to give the wrong impression. We had a wonderful experience with everyone involved with the production of the show. Admittedly, it was stressful getting everything ready, but I was the one that agreed to it ,(and to make a minor confession, I believe that I like to have just a little more work than I can handle: It makes the end-goal just a touch more rewarding).
So the show went along, after the first day I had more work to get done, and at 11:30 at night I was still on my front porch sanding and staining. But the second day went more smoothly, everyone was polite, and all were excited about our project. We learned a lot, not necessarily on the show, but off it, between the takes. Both the host, Bill Click, and the carpenter, Chris Sumthanorother, were very passionate about restoration and would walk through the house and explain how they would attack certain projects. They enjoyed sharing their knowledge with us. For them it had to be a rewarding experience also, because restoring older homes is not something that just anyone wants to talk about. And even with those that do, there is a smaller number of them that are actually interested in doing the work themselves.
After their last shoot, after they picked up all of their supplies (and my hammer…) after we all said our goodbyes, Jennifer and I locked the door. We let the cats out, cleaned the place up a bit, had a little dinner and told ourselves that we were a little tired and that we wouldn't do any work on the house for a while.
We didn't last a week.
We will let everyone know when the show will premiere.
Sean, Jennifer and Isabella Bolen
Return to
newsletter table of contents
|