Before and After

My station is clean, the cart is put away, and the Haish House has been safely secured in its box...

Today was my wrap-up day at the Regional History Center, and I took final pictures and put away all the things I stole from other workstations today. It was a bittersweet moment to see all the space that I filled nearly every Monday and Friday this semester be so empty, but the final pictures make it all worth it. 

Front View: Before

Front View: After

In the before picture, notice the sagging front porch and poor alignment of the tower.
 I have reattached the porch completely and the tower is properly aligned again.

Side view: Before

Side View: After

In the before picture, notice the broken chimney and shedding shrubbery. I cleaned and repaired the chimneys, cleaned up the shrubbery, and cleaned and replaced missing or broken window glass.

Back View: Before

Back View: After

During my work, I replaced a chimney that had fallen off completely and restabilized/attached the gazebo and porte-cochere which had been detached.

Side View: After

Side View: Before

This view affords a different perspective on the porte-cochere and displays the second porch which I replaced and stabilized.





I've had such a wonderful experience working with the RHC on this project, and it has opened so many new and fun avenues for me. Through this project, I've been able to visit the Art Institute's conservation lab, discuss marketing with the Dean of the Libraries, and speak with Haish descendants.

Rob, thank you for introducing me to Cindy--and by extension the project that would take over my life for six months. Cindy, thank you for making all of this possible and indulging all my bizarre shopping lists. Jessi, thank you for being so supportive and excited. It's been a joy to work with all of you, and I hope my work is up to par.

While I'm thanking people, I suppose I should thank W. Joseph Zack too for leaving his M.F.A. project at the DeKalb Public Library. It's been 38 years and the model is still going strong.

And thank you for following along.

Hours Today: 3:00

Total Hours: 85:30

Final Day of Work on the House

I DID IT!

Mostly.

I mostly did it.

As I write, I am waiting for the glue to dry on the connections between the porte-cochere and the gazebo, but once I move the clamps (and everything is stable) I will be done.

Here's the gameplan going forward: I will spend the rest of my day today (like an hour or so) preparing to write my EngagePLUS reflection on this experience. I will carefully organize my materials so I'm not embarrassed by them by Friday when I will put away all the bits and bobs I have borrowed from various people at the RHC. Later in the week, I will also be putting together a final before-and-after blog post with all my pictures and some of my reflections on this process.

While I was working in the basement today, a couple of people stopped by to check out my progress and talk about the storage and display strategy going forward. When the case is ordered and my precious model is finally on display, I will absolutely update this blog with the good news.

Hours Today: 3:30

Total Hours: 82:30

Not Quite the End...

As I draw ever nearer to completing this project, I'm continually in awe of the progress that I have made in 15 short weeks. I am so excited to take final pictures and do some before-and-after comparisons, but today is not the day for that.

Instead, today I constructed the base for the model to sit on. I forgot to document most of the process (further demonstration of why I could never, ever be a YouTuber), but I have a couple of pictures of the anatomy of the corners. Essentially, I measured the amount of space I would need and then cut a piece of foam and a piece of museum board to fit. I measured a piece of buckram larger than the foam, and used all my gift-wrapping skills to make it look nice and glued the corners in place. I'm glad I took my time (it looks really nice) but I am a bit frustrated that I have to come back next week in the midst of my finals preparation. I have a feeling I will finish no later than a week from today. 

Hours Today: 4:00

Total Hours: 79:00

Prepping for my Last Day

Well, after nearly a month of waiting for a final shipment of supplies, I'm back at work... and my supplies still haven't come in.

While I'm waiting, I've been rough-drafting the base's size and shape. It needs to be able to fit in the case, as well as in the box (which is on its way) which will be its home in the archives. This involves a lot of measuring, marking, and measuring again, and there's only enough buckram for me to do this once. The buckram we bought (which I will use to cover the foam-and-museum board base) is in a lovely green, and I'm excited to work with it more.

There's really not much to report today other than that since I spent most of my time measuring and trying to clean up the 30-year-old fake shrubbery on the side of the model.

Only five hours left!

Hours Today: 3:00

Total Hours: 75:00

Final Touches on the Structure

Today I spent a full day working on the model, and I'm nearly done with all the structural work! I've reassembled the final porch, replaced the trim on the porte-cochere, and even glued the tiny raven back in its rightful place. The last thing I have left to do is glue the porte-cochere to the house, and place and secure the gazebo next to it. I can find no evidence that the gazebo and the porte-cochere were ever actually glued together, which is just highlighting the importance in my mind of a solid base to place the whole model on.

Regarding the base, I can't work on it until the first week of April, so I'll be taking next week off. I'm in a strange in-between stage and I can't proceed until the supplies we've ordered have arrived. But once they do, I'll only have 8 more hours of work left until I am officially and finally done with this project! I can't even begin to express how much fun this has been...

Well, maybe "fun" isn't quite the right word. This has been an extremely educational project, and I have learned how much I truly adore working with material culture and engaging with people over the history of a community. I've gotten much more patient, and I am finally, truly appreciating how important taking the time to start a project well is.

Hours Today: 6:30

Total Hours: 72:00

Picture This...

After 10 days off for spring break, I'm back in the groove at the Regional History Center. Steve Bigolin, a local historian in DeKalb County, recently donated a variety of Haish-related artifacts to the RHC, and I'm sure glad he did! I spent part of my afternoon inspecting the collection of pictures he gave us, which included both interior and exterior shots of the house. Let me tell you, I learned A LOT!

Okay, so. First of all, there was a picture in the group that was clearly the oldest shot of the mansion that exists (to the right, on the top). This shows not a porte-cochere and gazebo, but a sunroom-area with the same upper shape and window motif as the gazebo. It turns out that was actually the original design for the home, which Haish essentially designed himself. However, when the house was built, it was discovered that there was a flaw in the plans and when it rained water would leak into the home. Instead, they built the gazebo out of the remnant of that sunroom, and the shape of both the porte-cochere and the gazebo were taken from the roof. Upon looking even closer, I think I found another detail that was changed between the first and second pictures. The part of the leftmost porch on the bottom picture that juts out horizontally doesn't appear at all on the first picture, as far as I can see. I think that was also a later addition to the house, and that theory seems correct if you consider how unsymmetrical it makes that side of the house. There's really no balance.

 I also went looking for pictures of the back of the house, which is extraordinarily plain in the model. It seemed out-of-character for Mr. Haish to neglect ornamentation on even the section of his house which is off the street, and I was right. It seems that W. Joseph Zack didn't have access to pictures of this angle, since there are two doors and porches missing completely from his model, and there is climbing vegetation affixed to the wall of the model, perhaps to hide that he has no clue what was supposed to be back here... It makes sense that there would be few pictures of this are, given that it was most likely the service entrance, and the doors probably led to the kitchen, but it is interesting nonetheless to see that there are still carved columns and stonework on the back to accent the entrances.

In addition, there were several pictures which depicted the process of tearing down the Haish house in September of 1961. It was jarring for me to see the bits and pieces that I recognized in this state, and it makes me wonder how many people were watching the demolition... There were at least three different perspectives that I could see, but there were no people aside from the workers in any of the shots.

There were also some fabulous detail photographs of things that are on a very small scale in the actual model (and thus appear as little bumps, if at all--I'm not sure that Zack knew what they were if he was working from pictures). 

(left to right) Column detail of a rooster, column detail of Jacob Haish's face, wall detail that appeared next to the shorter side's porch.

Included in the pictures were a few newspaper articles from both the time the house was built and the time the house was demolished. The oldest article, from 1885 and titled "Palace Beautiful," describes the then-newly-completed home as an "original and attractive combination of Medieval, Gothic and Queen Ann style of architecture" which they praised as the newest trend. The latest article, from August 1961, helped elucidate the picture shown below. In advance of the Haish house's demolition, members of the community were allowed to tour the inside of the mansion for one last time. This is, apparently, the source of many interior pictures we still have. Now, this was not the only time the interior was seen. The house was owned by the Lutheran church next door, and they used it to teach Sunday school, but there were some truly delightful pictures of middle-aged Swedish women posing in fromt of fireplaces and by large mirrors, like the one below. 

In addition to all the fun I had with the pictures, I also began to glue together the final porch that's been missing on the house and made a final decision about the house's base. Hopefully I'll finish the porch on Friday, then I'll take a week off and resume the home stretch on this project when my supplies come in at the beginning of April.

Hours Today: 3:30

Total Hours: 65:30

Level Placements

The end is drawing nigh, and I desperately want to get a case for this model ordered before the end of spring break. Cindy isn't sure if it will happen, but if the case does get ordered this semester it will take about 6 weeks to arrive. That means it'll be here by the end of April, which means I'll be finishing up this project during finals week... IF the case gets ordered in the next week. The ones we're looking at are in the realm of $2-4,000. Needless to say, that ain't cheap.

Today, I went over the roof area again with a fine tooth comb, and I glued down various bits of trim that were peeling off/making pests of themselves. I actually ended up taking off and reattaching the one chimney I hadn't messed with yet in this process, since it was most certainly the weakest link. Whoever thought that a loop of scotch tape would be the appropriate way to affix a broken chimney back on the house wasn't thinking clearly.

I also have officially placed the second floor on top of the first. I had some trouble aligning it, since one of the repairs I made to the tower was apparently not affixed properly, but once I addressed that issue everything came together. I actually tacked together the two floors in two different places, one on the corner by the fake climbing plants, and one on the front corner by the porch which I have already attached. This will keep the top layer from shifting while still allowing the level to be removed with a little bit of acetone applied to the place where they were glued.

I'll be taking next week off for spring break, but when I'm back I'm looking forward to the process of replacing the second porch.

Hours Today: 6:30

Total Hours: 62:00

TWO Things Were Finished Today

I'll be honest, after an exhausting weekend the last thing I wanted to do today was sit in the archives and work on the Haish model, but here I am. While I didn't fall asleep, I came uncomfortably close.

The original state of the gazebo.

The gazebo has been completely assembled!

As a reward to myself for making it here, I decided that today would be the day to glue on one of the porches. And I did it! I'd already affixed the columns to the base of the porch, but today I managed to glue the base to the wall and the columns to the roof. The wall section is now adequately supported, and I must say I am very proud. Things are really starting to come together now, to the point where I can show you before-and-after pictures!

When I found it, the porch was completely deconstructed.

Since then, the porch has been completed

Today I also very lightly tacked on the gazebo roof, as well as the tower on the base. On Friday, I'm planning to take some time to properly align and tack the upper floor of the model as well. I'm only gluing very lightly, and in easily accessible places, just in case there is some reason that the pieces need to be removed in the future--either for preservation, replacing a piece or if I just made a mistake that I haven't yet foreseen. I'm planning to be functionally done with the model reconstruction by the time I hit about 75 hours (three weeks from now, more or less, but I don't have my calendar with me), then spend my time here in April working on the base-and-case situation.

Hours Today: 3:30

Total Hours: 55:30

Gazebo Glass

Things are hitting critical mass at this point in my semester, so my day at the Regional History Center was abbreviated by a couple of meetings. However, I did get the chance to put all the glass back in the gazebo today!

The vises are holding panes of plexiglass that I've glued in

Earlier this week I cut pieces of glass for the top edge of the gazebo, and I was excited to glue that in, but I first had to glue in the larger windows on the bottom of the model. Those were all original pieces, and many of them were originally cut a little bit sloppily, so I had to do my best to hide the feathery cracks along the edges. I have a feeling that W. Joseph Zack didn't score his plexiglass as deeply as he should have before breaking it apart.

After reattaching the bottom glass, I moved to the top part. As I was leaving on Monday, I found one surviving piece of the original top glass. Guys, that stuff is paper-thin. I ended up placing it in one of the top windows so it will be clearly visible on display, but it was a nerve-wracking experience to even touch it. I felt like it was going to shatter at any moment!

But anyway, I couldn't do much beyond that due to today's time constraints but I'm excited to get back to work on Monday and achieve 3/4 of my time requirements before spring break!

Hours Today: 3:00

Total Hours: 52:00

More Plexiglass Updates!

It's genuinely impressive to me how much space I take up when I'm working

It's another short Monday afternoon with the Haish house--this time, though, I spent a good chunk of my day in communication with the Haish family! Through some mutual connections, I have been put in contact with a relative of the Haish family, and I'm very excited to see where our discussions go.

I finally bought the plexiglass I've been talking about for approximately a month, although it is much thicker than I thought it was going to be. I spent a portion of my afternoon learning how to cut plexiglass, which is simultaneously easier and more challenging than I imagined it would be. In the absence of any sort of vise or stabilizing implements, I really marked up one edge of my sheet, but I eventually broke off a couple of usable pieces. After cutting them into the size I thought I needed, I realized they were barely 1/16" too big for the windows. Rather than being able to score them then break them down to size, I had to cut all new pieces--which gave me more practice! I've got some great blisters forming on my fingers, but I've also got eight beautiful and clear pieces of plexiglass that I cut all by myself!

This is easily about 80x thicker than the original gazebo top glass

When I come back Friday morning, I want to glue them into the gazebo.

Hooray for learning new skills via YouTube!

Hours today: 3:30

Total hours: 49:00

Porch-Related Progress

Advances have been made today. In the morning, I worked with another RHC intern to honeycomb the lower floor of the Haish house.

Essentially, the hope is now that the museum board will support the weight of the upper floors instead of the walls supporting that weight. My morning was abbreviated because of an appointment, but I returned in the afternoon to put the finishing touches on the honeycombing and start another aspect of the house. Today, I worked with one of the porches and re-glued the columns in the configuration that I managed to deduce as correct. Each of the columns had broken off in a unique way, so I was able to match them back together. 

I was also able to glue back some house trim that was associated with the porch. I'm looking forward to officially reuniting the porch roof and floor next week, as well as finally getting to cut some glass!

Hours Today: 5:00

Total Hours: 45:30

The First Time I've Done Real Math in Almost a Year

Today was another short-ish day at the RHC, so rather than do any gluing or hands-on work with the model, I decided to get my questions answered and do some geometry.

I had a conversation today about reinforcing the upper windows of the gazebo with plexiglass, and I think we're going to go ahead with that plan. I'll have to run to Lowe's this weekend and buy some glass cutters, as well. This will serve a dual purpose. I'll have nice shiny glass that will look nice, and it will help reinforce and stabilize the roof of the gazebo, which is currently resting on water-damaged card stock, essentially. Not the most sturdy of materials.

Cindy and I also talked more about the case that she's buying for the model, which I will need to build a base for. The base will not hold the case, but rather the model inside it... I'm almost positive I talked about this in an earlier post. Essentially, rather than having this base be plain foam and museum board, we want to cover it in some sort of felt or fabric that will simulate grass. I went looking for that material today and had to calculate the surface area of the base to figure out how much we needed. I know! I'm finally using my 8th-grade Geometry! Forgive me for not having my graphing calculator at the ready, but I think I do actually know how much felt we need now... If we use that case.

I also kept writing/editing those newsletter articles from last week. I think I'm going to use the same information for both since I don't have very much to say that I can write in a journalistic style. I still don't have deadlines for them, but when I do at least they'll both be ready.

Hours Today: 3:30

Total Hours: 40:30

Honeycombs and Plexiglass

After an abbreviated Monday, I came to the Regional History Center today ready to get things done. Granted, I did wake up a little late, but by the time I arrived--only 15 minutes late--it was time to get down to business.

After a series of conversations with an art major that works with me, I have a gameplan in place regarding the gazebo, I think. It's the part of this whole structure that is in the worst shape, and there was a real danger that I would need to rebuild part of it. Instead, I am going to reinforce it from the inside and try to cut new plexiglass for the upper windows, which should also go a ways toward reinforcing the upper structure. I've got to ask Cindy if the plexiglass is an avenue I should pursue, but if it is I'll be visiting Lowe's in the near future for a glass cutter! I'm learning new things every day...

While I'm planning big things, I also decided that today would be more of a detail day. I did manage to place the plexiglass back into the roof of the gazebo and glue down all the loose bits there. I also undertook the stabilization of the lower level today. That was a bit of a challenge since each wall piece didn't have any sort of lip to glue one to the other, but between some archival tape and my trusty glue, we closed the gaps!

Someone also suggested today that I honeycomb the lower level and take the weight of the upper floors off the walls of the lower altogether. I enthusiastically agreed, since there is no support structure inside right now at all. Honeycombing means interlocking pieces of rigid board in a sort of tic-tac-toe board inside, so the entire base of the upper surface is resting on the board, and not the card stock walls of the model. Next Friday, she and I will put all that together (hopefully) and take another step toward stability!

The future is bright, and even though my shoulders hurt I am very excited.

Hours Today: 6:00

Total Hours: 37:00

A Day on the Fourth Floor (Instead of the Basement)

Today I was feeling a little under the weather, so I decided to take a different approach to my time at the Regional History Center. Instead of going downstairs to work on the model, I stayed up in the Regional History Center offices and wrote some articles.

Last week, Cindy told me that I could write short features on my work for both Founder's Keepers and Founder's Type, two different newsletters that are published by the NIU libraries. As an English major, I do not do a lot of journalistic writing, so it took more effort than I care to admit to whip up a first draft of the two articles. (But hey! I'm learning a new skill...) I'll come back to them next week, hopefully when I am feeling healthier, and turn them into something I can really be proud of.

Sorry this was such a short post--today was a short workday and there isn't much to report.

See y'all Friday!

Hours Today: 2:15

Total Hours: 25:00 (plus approximately 6 hours of prep time)

Visible and Measurable Progress!

Today as I worked on the Haish house I realized that after today I will have logged almost 30 hours of work on this little model. Quite honestly, just by looking at it you wouldn't be able to tell. I'm only now starting to make the visible changes/improvements that seem to mark my progress, and I am more excited about this project than ever.

Today, I tackled a couple of different sections of the model. First, I reattached the pieces of the roof that had fallen off in the past. I figured I would work from the top down so I:

1. don't lose any of the tiny fiddly bits that go on the roof
2. minimize the chance that my sleeves/tools get caught on things I've already completed as I'm working on the roof
3. can tackle a manageably-sized project without having to put it down over the weekend before I come back on Monday. 

And I did indeed finish the roof today! The thin metal trim around the roof, the spire on top of the tower, the unsteady chimneys, and the other random trim/decorative bits have all been restored, and I am very pleased.

It's a little hard to see, but the small floral-ish motif along the top of the roof was all falling off. I fixed that today.

 In addition to my work on the roof, I also did some repairs on the tower. In my last post, I explained (probably badly) how the tower is supposed to be connected to the rest of the house—by a strip of sandpaper which had since fallen off on one side. Today, I replaced that strip of sandpaper.

I haven't yet connected the tower to the main house, or the floors of the main house to each other, but I think I might wait a little longer for that anyway, to make some of the porch repairs a little easier.

In the process of replacing the tower, I had to get rid of the scourge of my existence, this terrible paper tape/glue/stuff. It's not very sticky and doesn't hold things together very well generally, but when I want to take it off the model I swear it actively tries to spite me. It also ends up leaving a disgusting film that has to be removed and will take bits of paper along with it if you're not careful.

Me removing the Tape From Hell

Finally, a quick update on the last window I need to replace. I precariously glued it in on Monday, but when I came back today I wasn't happy with it, so I removed it and cleaned off the glue. I'm going to try and place it again next week. 

On an entirely different note, some of the details regarding displaying the model are falling into place. I looked at cases today with Cindy, and we talked about how to make sure the model has a steady base on which to place all the pieces. Once the gazebo and porte-cochere are glued onto the model, it has to be placed on a very steady base, so we looked at different placement/display options. We've settled on a base of sturdy, archive-quality foam with a top layer of acid-free cardboard sheets. Ideally, we can cover it with green paper or felt to make it look like a lawn, even though we don't have the original plans or space to recreate the Haish House's landscaping.

It goes without saying that I am very excited about this whole process. 

Hours Today: 6:30

Total Hours: 22:45 (plus approximately 6 hours of prep time)

Another Day, Another Bizarre and Unreasonably Exciting Discovery

In my first Monday afternoon at the Regional History Center, I shored up a significant problem I was having with my lovely B72 Paraloid acetone-based glue. The containers that held it were plastic, and therefore deteriorating pretty quickly. I had some glass nail polish bottles sent to me through Amazon, and all my glue has been safely transferred there, hopefully for good.

As I waited for a little more glue to finish dissolving, I began to ponder the pieces of the model that I had not yet placed--namely, a small strip of rough sandpaper and some white card stock cut in a trim-like pattern. After a longer period of contemplation than I care to admit, I realized that they layered on top of each other! Then, I realized that a matching sandpaper-and-trim strip was placed in one side of the gap between the tower and the main body of the wall. Rather than having to twist the tower in a strange way to close the gap, I simply needed to re-glue this strip in place!

At this point, I think I have finally identified every loose part of this model.

The piece in the plastic bag is effectively identical to the piece between the tower window and the wall of the mansion.

I have also rigged up a system to put the final window's glass back into place. I'll glue a wooden dowel onto the center of the glass, then, using the dowel to hold the glass, I will maneuver it through the window and pull it against the frame. After the glue is dry, I will remove the excess glue that I used to hold the dowel.

As the week continues, I hope to add this sandpaper trim to the tower, finish replacing and cleaning the final window, and re-glue many of the roof elements that have fallen off.

Hours Today: 3:30

Total Hours: 16:15 (plus approximately 6 hours of prep)

Already 12 Hours In?

Okay, so maybe I was a little premature in declaring the cleaning process "done."

I spent my day at the Regional History Center today cleaning the glue remnants off the porte-cochere, making sure my glue was properly formulated and stressing out a little bit about the state of my glue/acetone containers. They're made of plastic, and I think that keeping acetone-based products in them was actually a really bad idea. Now I need to find some glass containers that are small enough for this purpose, but I am not particularly optimistic.

The acetone container I've been using for a week is already pretty severely cracked... I don't think that's Rubbermaid's fault.

In other news, I'm now almost 1/4 of the way through my project, and I can "confidently" say this is going to turn out hopefully-pretty-okay.

I'm hoping that I can make it back next Monday and that I will be able to glue the final piece of loose glass (by far the trickiest, since I have no way of getting to it from the interior, for some reason) and properly realign the floors over the course of next week.

This isn't the trickiest window, but one of the few that posed limited problems for me, actually.

Hours Today: 4:30

Total Hours: 12:45 of work, roughly 6 of prep

Week Two Observations

The second official week of my project brought with it a lot of new things! I wish I could have come in on Monday to work, but it was MLK Day and the university was closed. So instead, I decided to spend at least five hours working today, January 25th.
I purchased some acetone, finally, and was able to start working on removing the yellowing and nasty glue residue from all over the model. I also cleaned more dirt off various elements of the house. During this detailed work, I learned a few things about the model:
1) Spray glue gets EVERYWHERE and cleaning it up 30 years after the fact is a nightmare.
2) The chimneys were underpainted in black, then painted over in a red brick color, which explains why they look so dirty. But they're not dirty, just chipping.
3) The teeny-tiny wooden raven doesn't go on the roof like I thought. It goes on (what I have designated as) the side porch.
4) I should really take off my nail polish before working with acetone.
Today I managed to finish the preliminary cleaning of the entire house, and I started mixing my glue. Unfortunately, that took way longer than I thought it would, so I was not able to begin gluing anything today. Oh, well!
I'm looking forward to going back on Monday afternoon.
Hours Today: 5:45

Beginnings

Hello All!

Today (January 18th) is my first official day of work on the Haish House restoration. I've done a few months of prework already, where I evaluated exactly how much work this project would be. I also paid a visit to the Art Institute for research and met with the wonderful conservator of the Thorne Miniature Rooms, Lindsey Mican Morgan. I learned a lot there, and while I do not think I'll ever be truly prepared to start this project, I decided that it was time.

When I first encountered the Haish model, it was in dozens of pieces, and everytime someone moved it the house fell apart a little bit more. The model was completed in 1981 and displayed in the DeKalb Public Library for years, but it is now in the collections of the Regional History Center. There is a laundry list of repairs and stabilizations (seriously, my list is 44 items long!) and I hope that I will actually be able to finish this project during the semester!

Today, in addition to getting acquainted with my workspace and new tools, I was able to begin preliminary cleaning. I forgot to buy a product to remove excess glue, so I was only able to remove dirt today--next week I hope to begin to clean the glue lines off so I can cleanly replace the pieces that have fallen off. All in all, over about three hours I was able to lightly clean the dirt from the still-attached portions of the roof, side and front porches, and the gazebo.

The first page of my monster to do list

I'm excited to see what the future holds for me in this project!

Hours Today: 2:45