My Work

About My Work

About Me is the page where I will write in more detail about my company and business. I will focus on all of my strong points, history, licensings, and accomplishments.

I don't have a mission statement, but I will create one.

Certifications, licenses, and insurance information will be posted.

My experience as the founder and key employee; and other important details will also be added

A QUICK NOTE : Pages listed under "My Work" printed in All Capital letters are the latest pages added to my site.

My Company history is something I have to document for school so I may have this posted sooner than later. comment posted 8/31/10

My company's history, including location, ownership, personal experiences, and other information that will help people remember me will be posted.

BACKGROUND HISTORY

Having been doing contracting for almost 30 years, it was rather difficult to remember what I was doing at any given point in time. Therefore it became necessary to create a basic time line of my life long work, which started when I was 17.

Well actually my first learning experience was with tile, prior to

age 11, 44 years ago there were no spacers for tile. My grandfather taught me the art when tooth pics were used for spacing. Then, at age 11, my grandfather tore down his old garage. I was nailing down shingles on the new roof by the time we got to that part of the project.

My Great Great Grandfather, Great Grand father and Grandfather were all in some aspect of contracting. My grandfather and my

father were tool and die precision craftsmen. My father as well as my step-father were in the contracting business. My step-father taught me plumbing and electric. I took on my father's characteristics of compulsive, meticulous precision, my grandfather's skills as a craftsman; coupled with my step-father's fearlessness, and added my ability to think outside the box. I graduated St. Joseph's H. S., Metuchen, NJ in the second fifth of my class. I was listed in the Who's Who of American H.S. students of 1973 and went on to Seton Hall University, majoring in Chemistry. Working and commuting to school with such an intense load of school work was not going well so I could not

afford to pay for school and I had to drop out of College after a

year and a half.

I was always a go getter, I have a high A personality - whatever that means. What I do know is that I do not know how to sit still.

I started working in H.S. as the janitor's assistant and worked with him for 3 years, even through the summer months until I got a job at Rickels Home Center in their Plumbing Dept. at age

17. Having worked with my step-father, I knew plumbing and

kitchen cabinet layouts rather well. Using my high intelligence

with math skills in trig, algebra and geometry; drawing to scale came to me second nature.

A guidance counselor told me, no matter what the situation is,

learn from it. So I did and still do. Working as a janitor taught me certain skills that I have applied to marble work. I learned

design layout from selling kitchen cabinets. I had resentments

toward my step-father for not paying me to work with him, but

I certainly learned a wealth of knowledge in contracting, plumbing and electric work. Working in extremely old houses,

sometimes I have to be very creative in my approach to any given situation that arises to complete a repair.

I can talk forever so I'll cut it short here and post my history.

MY WORK HISTORY TIMELINE

This is not what I expected to happen ... But if you click this link and open it, it will show you my work history timeline.

http://theplastermaster.net/Documents/MY%20%20WORK%20%20HISTORY_Timeline.doc

This page was last modified on Friday, October 29, 2010 01:11:49 PM

MY WORK AS IT RELATES TO SAFE

REMEDIATION

All of my work was done at one location. I work on this house for a total of 7 years. The last four of those years were consecutive. In all, at least 3 of those years were related to remediation. The house was 137 years old when they bought it

in 2002.

The main first floor entrance and side hallways were gutted and I sheetrocked them.

The main stairway from the first to the third floor was skinned

with 1/4 inch sheetrock. The plaster walls underneath this sheetrock were plaster patched and resupported prior to skinning over them so the sheetrock had a sound base to secure to. All plaster moldings were refinished back to original.

All old paint was removed from the existing plaster moldings.

The main stairway ceiling at the third floor level was in bad shape and had to be totally removed. A prior leak from one of the chimneys causes some supporting ceiling beams to shift.

They needed to be reworked at the same time. The back side of the ceiling was exposed up in the attic area. The issue this created was 137 years of dust resting on the plaster ceiling that had to be removed without allowing any dust to find it's way down to the second floor living area. Thus the need to get creative. I built a pully system out the third floor window to lower 5 gallon buckets of debree down to a platform and then lowered to the ground and loaded into a dumpster at the street.

I built a sealed hatch doorway at the third floor so that NO dust

could get to the second floor.

Working on the hallway, doors were taped shut and plastic

partitions were constructed to contain the immediate areas as I

was working on them.

Most of what follows is documented at my Door & Window Replacement page but there are several other pages that show detailed descriptions of work done. I will list all of the pages that show more information. I will work on hyper linking those pages for quick reference.

The second floor hall area was already skinned with 1/4 inch

sheetrock and some rooms were already finished on the inside.

Removing door and window moldings called for care as not to

destroy what was already done. Two bedrooms did not need any work on the plaster moldings. The laundry room and bathroom did not have any plaster ceiling moldings. There was

also no ceiling molding going up the stairwell to the third floor.

Adding up the doors replaced totalled nine doors. Windows

totalled 21 replacement windows on the second floor. The bathroom window was reworked. The 2nd floor hall windows were stripped and the 3rd floor hall window was replaced.

The other issue at hand was the fact that the rooms were in use.

The six bedrooms had to be done one at a time. The first room done became the cutting room. As I moved from room to room

all bedding etc. had to be removed and not put back until all

work was completed. Each room was triple cleaned prior to

moving things back in.

On the first floor 3 sets of double doors were sent out to be dipped and stripped. All doors in the entire house are over

sized. Window sashes for 10 windows were sent out to be dipped and stripped. Window frames, tracks and sills were all stripped and reworked. Window sills were also veneer laminated as to make for a finer looking finish. All window

chains and pulleys, as well as window locks and pulls were replaced. The window glass was replaced and reglazed. Windows were restained and varnished to re-match the existing

work in the parlor that was already done. In the dining room

I did all of the things listed in this paragraph plus removing and refinishing all of the window and door trim. The door into the kitchen was replaced. Two windows in the kitchen were also replacements. The back and side entrance doors got replaced.

Customer testimonials

Who knows Maybe I'll go as far as starting a BLOG

What do your customers have to say? Consider using some space to tell the story of the business through your customers' voices. Their word is more powerful than anything you can say for yourself.

IF YOU WANT YOUR COMMENTS
POSTED ON MY SITE PLEASE
E_MAIL THEM TO ME.

JLongo9110@aol.com

This page was last modified on Friday, October 29, 2010 01:11:49 PM

THE PLASTER MASTER

reviving an art form in victorian restoration