Repair and re-touching work
The Ragged School Museum, Mile End, London
Repairs to stained and repaired paintwork in the Hoist room.
Showing the top floor Hoist Room at the Ragged School Museum after the retouching to create a harmonious patinated surface on the walls.
The Ragged School Museum in Mile End, London will reopen after refurbishment in June/July 2023. I was asked to work on re-touching and minimising unsightly staining on the long right hand wall and disguising new replacement bricks and mortar repairs in the Hoist room.
The image above shows the Hoist room after the work was completed. The Hoist room has in the past been divided into smaller work spaces and the walls have interesting blocks of colours and textures. The brief for the retouching was to reduce the most obvious distracting stained areas and to retouch some of the mortar repairs but to keep the patination of the painted surfaces and allow the history of the building to remain visible.
The Hoist room is a lovely large space that will be used for events and performances and is lit from both sides of the building and through the roof lights.
Showing new mortar repairs before retouching to minimise
Showing re-touched disguised mortar repairs
The images above show one of the mortar repairs which was retouched. The left hand image shows the mortar repair before work and the right hand image shows the finished repair which blends in with the patinated surrounding paint surface.
The metal stair balusters set into the tread with a dark colour mortar, showing the colour before retouching.
The metal stair balusters set into the tread with a dark colour mortar. retouching was carried it to match the mortar to the tread colour.
The Ragged School Museum has three staircases and in one a number of metal balusters had been replaced but set into the tread with a very dark mortar. I was asked to retouch this so that it blended in with the colour of the treads. I achieved this with a number of layers of thin paint. The image on the left shows the original mortar colour and that on the right the finished work.
Ragged School Museum wall before retouching to minimise staining and disguise new replacement bricks.
Ragged School Museum wall after retouching to minimise staining and disguise new replacement bricks.
The images above show the long right hand wall of the Hoist room which is some areas had very obvious staining. I was asked to reduce the appearance of the staining so that the wall had a gently patinated appearance. The image on the left shows the dark staining and the right hand image shows the finished work.