Woodgraining also part of rowhome decor

By Andrea F. Siegel | Sun reporter

May 7, 2008

Along with painted screens, doors and window frames grained to look like expensive woods were an integral element of the East and South Baltimore rowhouses decorated years ago by European immigrants.

Frank Bittner of the Eastern Shore is one of few Baltimore natives who learned woodgraining the traditional way: by watching elders in his family.

"What we used to do as an everyday thing is now considered art," says Bittner, 54. "Faux finishing."

He will be demonstrating the traditional woodgraining he learned. Practitioners -- and everyone either was one, was related to one or knew one in the early 1900s -- died off, and inexpensive fake finishes took over. So real were the golden oaks and so lost was the knowledge of woodgraining, that in recent years remodelers trying to restore old doors sanded off the graining, Bittner says.

But if younger people restoring homes knew more about it, "it would regain popularity," predicts Bittner, who trained an apprentice on a Maryland Traditions state grant three years ago.

andrea.siegel@baltsun.com

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Woodgraining also part of rowhome decor

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