When Bill was getting ready to put his historic New England farmhouse on the market, he did what many homeowners do and had the peeling clapboard repainted. The home looked beautiful with a fresh coat of white paint, but now the vintage hand-painted sign next to the front door looked even shabbier by comparison.
The painting contractor called Mural Envy to see if we could restore the old sign. The sign was in poor condition, with peeling paint and a large portion of the bottom edge completely rotted away. But we were excited about the idea of bringing this antique treasure back to life, so we agreed to give it a try!
We took a trace of the original design to preserve it. Then we scraped, sanded, and re-built the rotted areas, then covered the whole sign with two coats of exterior white paint to protect it.
Next came the fun part: re-painting the delicate border and text with 1-shot professional sign enamel. Sign painting by hand is no longer as in-demand as it once was, but fortunately there are still some masters of the trade who are doing their part to preserve this classic and beautiful craft. We learned from them to restore this piece of local history.
