Typical vernacular elevation, Old Town.

Unique, local, historic, vernacular architectural design traditions were originally determined not by designers and draftsmen, but by the carpenters and builders, maintained by the profiles of the cutting tools that they bring on the job to produce finish wood mouldings. These knives help to determine the look and feel, the weight of the local style, inside, outside and from the street. Before the Civil War, there was little standardization of moulding profiles. And so it is in Old Town and Georgetown, in America’s Capitol area. Antebellum wood moulding profiles vary from neighborhood to neighborhood, era to era and builder to builder. That is why master painter John Learnard, of the Color Alchemist, has assembled such a collection of wood moulding knives, as necessary, in order to accurately replace any damaged historic woodwork. If he doesn’t already have the knife, he gets it made.

John Learnard is a Member of the Guild of Building Artisans.

Georgetown, how many profiles of wood moulding?

Residential Architecture of Washington, D.C., and Its Suburbs