Restoration Updates
It’s been a busy winter here at the museum. Our team has been working tirelessly on restoration projects throughout the Historic Chaffee County Courthouse. This winter’s projects may have felt a little all over the place, but in reality, we’ve been laying the groundwork for the next several years of restoration.
So what have we done over the last few months? The short answer: a lot.
First, the construction crew finished preparations to protect the building as much as possible. That meant laying heavy-duty protective paper throughout the downstairs hallway, in the schoolroom, on the stairs, around the upstairs landing, and into the archive. Because we knew demolition would produce a lot of dust, we wanted to control the mess as much as we could. Radiators were covered to keep dust out, plastic sheeting was hung over exhibit room doors, and the top of the staircase was sealed off to contain debris downstairs. Fortunately, testing confirmed that none of the paint was lead-based, so we did not have to address those additional health concerns.
Then the dirty work began.
A large portion of the hallway ceiling had to be removed to allow the old electrical to come out and new wiring to go in. All of the old light fixtures were removed. Conduit that had been run along the hallway walls over the years to supply electricity to the downstairs rooms was carefully taken down while minimizing damage to the original plaster. Upstairs, the Judge’s Office also had to be prepped.
In decades past, transom windows were removed so conduit could be run through that space. Because we plan to restore those transoms in the future, we needed to find new paths for wiring to enter each room. New junction boxes were installed in the attic and crawl space so that wiring can now be run through floors and ceilings instead. This is where some of this winter’s work may have felt scattered. We do not yet have funding to completely rewire the building in one phase, so we used this time to run conduit and lay the groundwork for electrical projects that will be completed over the next several years.
That is not to say we did not begin electrical upgrades already. The downstairs hallway is getting all new lighting. Bare fluorescent tubes are being replaced with chandeliers that better fit the historic character of the building, along with track lighting to illuminate the exhibits. The Judge’s Office now has eleven outlets—an upgrade from the three we had before. Two new outlets were also installed on the north side of the courtroom, providing electrical access to that half of the room for the first time.
So what is left this year?
The downstairs hallway ceiling needs to be closed back in, and drywall will be installed in the next few weeks. Once that is complete, the new lights will go up. We will also complete finishing touches on the windows restored last year as part of this grant. After that, we have some serious cleaning ahead of us—the dust mitigation efforts only worked so well—before reinstalling exhibits in time to open in May.
If you want to help support our restoration efforts, please donate!
As always, our deepest gratitude to the Colorado State Historical Fund for the grant money that makes this work possible.
