Beals Project: Marking the Property History
Branding irons is a normal thing to bring to work, right? Jon and I were tasked with doing something to honor the past owners of the house, marking all these families that were stewards of this special property. I loved the idea of noting them, I just was stressed about how to do it in a creative and subtle way, not in a trite way. My brain went to marking an architectural element somehow and making it subtle. Not in your face. Not sure how branding irons popped to mind but it seemed perfect. Especially with the Living Room ceiling staying open, exposing the wood.
Now the hard work – branding. Which I yet again got to be design director! Working with Jon we figured out where we put names, what beams, etc and be the trusty helper getting each name ready to go, sifting through the alphabet. I got the easy job. Case in point – the photos below. Wind, fire, rain and smoke. Jon was such a trooper!
I said fire – seriously ….. all these cars driving by were clearly questioning what we were doing with a camera crew out on the front yard!
The challenge of it all was getting them hot enough and up on the wood in time to actually brand the wood. Hence the mad scramble!
We went for some intentionally asymmetry. We didn’t want them too obvious when you walked it. We started with the oldest family name closest to the front door and then ending up with the newest owners, the Beals closest to the end of the room and the new connector structure.
This project turned out to be one of the coolest touches I think we did on any of the houses. I wonder where all the branding irons ended up …….
Art: See Gallery Post