Faux Graining Pedlar’s End

Tucked away in the mountains of New Hampshire, Pedlar’s End was built by the Gannett family around 1800. What today is a nearly impassible dirt road, running intermittently in front of the house, was in the early 19th century a bustling thoroughfare into Maine. This road plays an integral role in the macabre story of the house’s curious name. According to legend, a traveling pedlar visited the house one day. Among his goods were several bolts of colorful calico cloth. The family, either because of the father’s parsimony or their lack of money, declined to buy anything. Several weeks later, however, the girls showed up to church wearing new dresses of bright calico. As for the pedlar, he was never seen again.

In the decades following the American Civil War, the area around Pedlar’s End experienced depopulation. Farming communities broke up, and young people moved to the cities for factory jobs. Pedlar’s End sat vacant for much of the twentieth century.

Today, Pedlar’s End is in a new chapter of its story. The house is being restored and is once again a residence. In September, I made the trek up to New Hampshire to restore the entry hall at Pedlar’s End. The original front door had long since disappeared, so the new owners decided to restore the new-old door and the sidelights with a period-appropriate faux mahogany finish. Faux graining was a popular treatment for woodwork in the early 19th century, and mahogany was perhaps the most widely-used faux finish for doors. At Pedlar’s End, we know from paint analysis that even the floors in many rooms were faux grained!

For Pedlar’s End’s doors, I chose to follow P.F. Tingry’s approach to faux grained mahogany in his 1830 painter’s and glazier’s manual. Faux graining is usually a three-coat process, with the first coat an opaque base coat. Per Tingry, I chose a golden yellow for the base coat (he refers to the color as “spruce ochre”). Coat two is the primary graining layer, where the painter manipulates a translucent glaze to mimic a specific wood’s grain pattern. After this dries, coat three is applied. This is another application of the translucent glaze, but this time its primary purpose is to deepen the richness and color of the faux graining.