THE PLASTER MASTER

reviving an art form in victorian restoration

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My Work
The O V Dining Room Fireplace
restore plaster molding
The O V Second Floor Hall Molding
The O V Dining Room Ceiling Molding
The O V Dining Room Wainscott Trim
A Tiled Kitchen Backsplash
Other Tile Work
A Bathroom Restored
Repairing Broken Marble
THe O V Corbels
Work on Saint Thomas
The O V Master Bedroom Plaster Work
More Tile Work
More Marble Work
The O V Master Bedroom Dressing Room
The O V OUTSIDE Projects
The O V Outside Front
The O V Gables
The O V Outside Back of the House
"The New Toy" - The Boom Lift
The O V Outside Right side of the house
The O V Outside Left side of the house
The O. V. Foundation
Contact Us
COMING SOON
         Work That I Did While Living on
            SAINT  THOMAS,  U. S. V. I.
 
This first job overlooks Magen's Bay ... the 10th most
beautiful beach in the world as per National Geographic.
 
 
Hard to work under such conditions ....   :)
 
 
The Patio
 
 
I'll add more text tonight    3/26/07
 
 
scanning pictures took longer than I thought
 
 
The main entrance hall
 
 
Continuing down the hall and looking into the kitchen
 
 
The far end of the hall
 
 
The kitchen
 
 
Hallway bathroom
 
 
Master bedroom bathroom
 
 
Looking into the sunken shower
 
 
Looking into the toilet / bidet room
 
 
matching veins
 
 
A jigsaw puzzle
 
Other St. Thomas work will follow and the story that goes with these pictures will soon be updated.  I just have not had any time to do so as of yet.  I apologize but I am quite busy.   Thank You.
 
The Stouffer Grand Beach Resort 
A Wyndam Hotel
 
The sun is blinding and this 7/8" thick 12" x 12" Rose Marble
spans the entire width and depth of the main lobby.  You may
remember the movie "Weekend at Bernie's 2" and they bring
Bernie down to St. Thomas... well this is where they go so you can probably get a better view of my work here by watching the first 15 minutes of the movie !
 
A few details about the work is that everything is shipped to the island via boat so all beveling and polishing of the edges of the stone need to
be added on the site.  The marble base moulding around the columns
had to be figured out as to what size to cut each piece so that each piece measured the same width.  I think it was about 2 1/4" each.
 
 
This picture is water damaged but you can see the huge amount of calculating, cutting, beveling and polishing that
had to be done to achieve this staircase that goes up to the second floor of the main lobby.
 
 
Here is the Tourist Info desk in the rear of the lobby.  Before the end of the job we ran out of the upright grooved marble and I had to fabricate the grooves in several sections.  The marble tops all had to be cut and fitted throughout as well as polishing them prior to opening the hotel.
 
 
This is the Beach Bar and although it is not done as of the time this picture was taken, you can see that the hotel is open for business in the background.
 
 
Here is the Beach Restaurant with sand right outside the open
walls.  Needless to say, people dancing on this floor at night
and the presence of sand are never a good thing for marble.
 
 
There are some Suites that have a couple of bedrooms and
a jacuzzi bathroom.  All of the rooms in the entire hotel have
tiled bathrooms, marble floors and baseboard around the rooms.  There are units on the beachfront and units up on the hillside.   A total of 308 units in all.  I worked on this project for about 2 years.
 
Frenchmann's  Reef  Hotel  Work
 
Here I laid Miles and Miles of Terra Cotta Tile
 
 
This is the lower level as you come down the stairs from the
main lobby.  The main lobby was also tiled in Terra Cotta. 
My big project was the fountain in the lobby as you walk in through the front doors.  A beautiful Rose' Marble.  I can't seem to find any pictures of it.  One of the pieces was shipped in with the wrong side polished and I had to fly back to the states to get materials to correct the issue.
 
 
Terra Cotta everywhere.  The spacers between joints was 1/2" pieces of sheetrock !
 
 
A lot of my older pictures have water damage.  Terra Cotta came in from Mexico and was raw unfinished stone.  The tiles
had to be soaked in water over night and then 2 coats of a sealer were rolled on them before they could be set.
 
 
By the way ... this was a renovation job so the hotel never closed.  Grout was mixed 50 lbs. at a time and instead of a sponge for cleaning up the excess grout, wet blankets were pulled across the grouted tile.  It was an imense time saver
working on such large areas with such wide grout joints.
After the grout dried, it was buffed and a third coat of sealer was rolled on the grouted tilework.
 
 
They even had me tile the old W. W. II Gunnery post that the
only access was down that long winding set of stairs.  What a
challenge carrying materials down to this site was ! ! !
 
A Couple of Local Projects
 
A  POOL  PROJECT
 
 
The colors are off in this picture.  It was faded and I tried to
correct them ... but you still get the general idea.  The work is the blue tile around the perimeter of the pool.  The diamond
shaped tile has a raised conk shell print in it.
 
Now you have to keep in mind that water is an expensive commodity on St. Thomas and the pool was full prior to doing the work.  So .... we drained the pool down a foot and I proceeded to do all of the work from inside the pool, on a raft.
Yes an inflatable canvas type raft !!!  I had it tied to railing and wherever I could as needed to keep it in position where I needed it to be and moved it as I went along.
 
Needless to say the home owner was thrilled with my resourceful thinking and he saved a lot of aggrevation not having to have about 4 water trucks come and deliver water
at some unreasonable cost.
 
A  Bathroom  Project
 
 
After tiling the bathroom I was asked to hang the accessories.
Little did I know that the squid and several other things that were ceramic has to be secured to the walls.  There were no
hanging devices built into the squid so the area of tile was roughed up where the body of the squid is and marble epoxy
was what I used to hang the pieces of art.  Another well satisfied customer.
 
 
Please feel free to e-mail me.
Some 500 people have viewed
my site in the 2 months that it
has been up and I have yet to
get any comments ! ! !
 
 
Thank  You
 
  This page was last modified on Wednesday, April 04, 2007 10:19:38 AM