Practicing historic preservation is a priority for the City of Lancaster. More than 250 years of history, and are eleven common architectural styles are found in Lancaster city alone. Each neighborhood in Lancaster city has an array of homes displaying fine craftsmanship of times past. Each home is unique, and boasts woodwork as individual as a fingerprint.
Cedars Woodworking is pleased to provide expertise to preserve and restore Lancaster’s historic homes. With each unique project, care is taken to ensure quality and to use period-style methodology, such as mortise and tenon joints, to retain the original character of the neighborhood. Recreating Historical Woodwork in Lancaster, PA is one of our passions, and we are pleased to assist with preserving Lancaster’s unique history.
Lancaster city is privileged to have over 900 buildings that are protected, which means that any exterior renovation must be approved by the Historical Architecture Review Board. The City of Lancaster provides many resources to homeowners for the preservation, maintenance, and repair of their historic homes. One of those resources is a downloadable .pdf booklet that can be found by clicking here.
Cedars Woodworking and Renovations is a millwork shop located in Lancaster city. Our understanding of Lancaster city’s historic district’s standards for exterior renovation positions us to serve homeowners in our neighborhood. Cedars Woodworking helps our neighbors with the following custom millwork and woodworking services:
Doors: Entry doors in Lancaster city help define a home’s architectural style, and therefore are an important part of its facade. Maintaining your front door will help preserve it. Cedars Woodworking can help restore and maintain your main entry door by removing old paint, repairing rotted or damaged parts, and refinishing the door to its original appearance. If your door needs to be replaced, Cedars Woodworking can accurately replicate the original.
Porches and entrances: These are often the primary focal point of homes in Lancaster, PA. Just like doors, porches help define the home’s architectural style. The components of the porches include railings, steps, columns, brackets, and roofs. Most homes in Lancaster’s historic district have interesting ornamental details. Porches are exposed to the elements and thus are vulnerable to deterioration. Cedars Woodworking can help Lancaster residents by replacing damaged, missing, or rotted wooden elements with new, exact replicas of the original woodwork to maintain the building’s historic character. Features such as balusters, columns, and handrails are a few of the exterior details that have been replicated at Cedars.
Windows: While painting the sash and frames of older windows will prevent the wood from warping or rotting, windows are still exposed to the elements, and over time may need to be replaced. Properly maintained wood windows can last indefinitely, and Cedars Woodworking can help replace historic windows that are beyond repair. In addition to the windows, Cedars Woodworking will repair (if needed) and paint window components such as decorative hoods, sills, lintels and casings.
Shutters: If your home has shutters that were used historically, Cedars Woodworking can replace the original shutters, paneled or louvered, in kind.
Decorative Trim: Many detached and row homes in Lancaster city boast decorative trim that is no longer commonly available at lumber yards. However, millwork shops like Cedars Woodworking can duplicate the styles of trim from different eras in Lancaster’s history. Eaves, cornices, soffits, window and door trim contribute to the important architectural details on buildings, and in some areas of Lancaster city, they may not be removed without being replaced in kind.
Recently, a neighbor of ours requested we replace a porch post that was partially rotted out. Cedars Woodworking was able to replicate the column’s base and restore the rest of the column. Our craftsmen replicated the column’s base using Spanish cedar, which is known to resist insects and decay.
Original porch column – replicated first in Styrofoam to ensure accuracy, then crafted meticulously from Spanish cedar for durability and longevity.
The new column base was then reattached to the original porch column. The entire column was then primed and painted, and finally re-installed on the porch.
The new porch column base was re-attached to the original post, then primed and painted.
Cedars Woodworking is pleased to provide custom millwork and custom woodworking services to the Lancaster, York, and Harrisburg communities. If you have a special historic woodworking need, consider Cedars Woodworking’s services.
If you would like to learn more about architecture in Lancaster, PA, please visit: http://www.cityoflancasterpa.com/business/architectural-styles This website is home to many resources regarding Lancaster, PA such as an architectural timeline, descriptions of the various architectural styles of Lancaster city homes, and places to visit in Lancaster for all ages.
If you are a Lancaster city homeowner, here is the property maintenance booklet which outlines the do’s and don’ts of repairing and replacing exterior elements of your home. http://www.cityoflancasterpa.com/sites/default/files/documents/property-maintenance.pdf
