Page 2 - April 2022 Slippery Rock Gazette

2|April 2022
Decades of damage to stone floors and baseboards were the major focus of this resto- ration.The lobby rises some 40 feet so cleaning and pol- ishing the walls were a chal- lenging part of the project.
Restoring the 801 Market Street Lobby
Slippery rock GAzette
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If things sound challeng- ing at this point, an even big- ger challenge awaited Sirianni. Unlike The Marble Restoration Company’s past jobs that were acquired through local contrac- tors, this one was through G Builders LLC from New York, N.Y. They were, as some would say, the new guys on the block, continued Sirianni.
“They had put the job out to bid, but they were new and we were strangers, they didn’t know who we were. So there was a matter of developing a trusting, work- ing relationship, and we had to go through all kinds of hoops to prove to them that we were qual- ified to do the work. To convince them, we said let us go in and do some samples for you.
“We did two samples of repairs, two samples of the restoration and polishing of the floors, and two samples of the cleaning, polish- ing and sealing of the walls. We did it on our own time, but it was a big enough job that it was worth doing the samples, and ultimately, between the samples and when they found out who we were and the types of buildings that we had done in the past, they decided we were the team that they wanted handling this project.”
The Fine Art of
Color Matching
Now that Sirianni had landed the project, it was time to get down and dirty. As they were dealing with a 94-year-old build- ing, sourcing replacement mate- rials at a local marble shop was not an option, but color match- ing and gluing was, although it would be very time consuming. However, there was a silver lin- ing, explained Sirianni. “We had just brought on four new train- ees, and we decided that this job would be a real good training ground for them. First of all, the last thing you want to do is put a new guy into a residential job with a cherry picker. At this job, though, we had this huge, 40-foot high, open lobby that we could really train them in the technique of using one of these. This really helped them. More importantly, though, with all the damage, the hardest thing to train someone in is doing the repair work, and how to color match. We’ve always had a real challenge training guys how to do these, because we sel- dom have the right job to spend the time teaching and showing them.
“On the 801 Market Street job, there were five different colors of stone and a ton of crazy, crazy
Cleaned, restored and polished, the Jerusalem Gold limestone lobby floor still looks pristine after a month of use — especially now, with reg- ular maintenance.
damage, and it was the perfect opportunity to train and give them the experience of doing repairs and color matching.”
According to Sirianni, mate- rials used throughout were a picturesque mix of Jerusalem Gold, Perlato, Travertine, Absolute Black and Rosa Sardo. Framed, historical-themed fres- cos mounted above the eleva- tors adorn the lobby, but also
added to the complication, and had to be safely worked around, said Sirianni. “We had to protect these beautiful frescos when we were polishing the marble walls around them. We were like, ‘Oh my goodness. We don’t want to damage them.’ So these areas were done by our more experi- enced people.”
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The beautiful, carved trim around the arch was marred by cracks and spalling. Patches were made and covered with color-matched K-Bond epoxy, and then polished.