A Beach Guest Cottage:
Exterior Aging & Detailing Techniques

The Beach Cottage is a small, board-&-batten, two-room turn-of-the-century cottage, with a small front porch and sand dune landscaping. While teaching you how we create age and weathering on the exterior of the cottage, we hope to help develop your powers of observation, as well as a style of your own.
You will work with hand tools, stains, and paints to create a natural, aged look on siding, shingles, decking and hardware. You will learn how to build your own shutters, windows and doors, along with our techniques for landscaping, and bricking chimneys. The class focuses on weathering techniques rather than construction, so we will have assembled major wall and roof elements for you.

Time will not allow for interior work, but we shall discuss our interior techniques as time allows. It is unlikely students will complete the exterior by the end of the week, but you will have the necessary tools and skills to do so at home. While the class is geared toward students of all
levels, classwork requires lengthy periods of standing and sitting, as well as strong hands, to successfully complete the work required. Students also need to be able to move around easily in order to refer to the prototype while working.

The Beach Cottage is a comprehensive project that includes many of our techniques. We enjoy teaching it because each group of students brings something new to the project. If you know people who have already taken this workshop, you may find we have changed some techniques as we discover better methods.

6-day workshop