Rehab of Papa Ted's Foil & COCO Base Church

Post by **Tom Hull** » Sat Dec 13, 2014 2:19 am

I bought this not too long ago and it has a foil roof which was nearly ruined as was the front door and fence and posts no porch roof and no steeple. First the before photos and then the after. This was much shabbier than these photos suggest. The mullioned windows were almost black with soot and the smaller one I had to carefully paint with white paint. This was a typically filthy Pittsburg putz building and Ted would have testified that many of the Pennsylvania putz houses were that way. Some of the most interesting houses in some of the sootiest of conditions come from Pennsylvania. All those steel mills and coal breathing factories really poured soot over everything and it even permeated the attics where these things were stored apparently.

Post by **Tom Hull** » Sat Dec 13, 2014 2:26 am

And this is the after set of photos. The front door was repaired with a Pete Oehmen mullion windoor that I cut down and pasted OVER the top of the one that was there. The reason is that this one is one of those rare ones with a curtain over the lower part and I wanted to keep it as best as possible. Nothing was done to the walls of the church and only the posts were replaced on the base. But it was necessary to re-foil the roof and of course the new steeple and porch roof. New red cellophane was put over the inside of the door and the skylight window above the porch roof.

Post by **les** » Sat Dec 13, 2014 8:55 am

Great restoration job, Tom!!! Thanks for posting all the pictures...made it all come to life!!!

Post by **Tom Hull** » Sat Dec 13, 2014 4:23 pm

Thanks Les. Buddy my cat decided to "run interference" for me and even tasted the fence a bit - which earned him a no no. I have no idea why these cats do "their thing" but they sure do!

Post by **DCrowe** » Sat Dec 13, 2014 5:34 pm

BEAUTIFUL cat.

Nice job on the resto, and thanks especially for before and after photos.

Post by **Lynn** » Sun Dec 14, 2014 2:07 pm

What a nice house you did a great job. Having 2 cats myself I love the pictures of Buddy

Post by **paulrace** » Sun Dec 14, 2014 3:48 pm

Tom, thank for posting the resto. Always nice to see one of these come back from the brink, and nobody does it better than you. Here's a question - was there a hole between the steeple and the main structure to let light bleed through? Most of these don't seem to have it, but I can't help asking.

Post by **Tom Hull** » Mon Dec 15, 2014 11:01 am

No this has NO communication of light to the tower and this is the case with nearly ALL of the putz buildings. ONLY one consistently punched a hole between the main building and side wings or towers and that is the pasted on Paper Export Label houses or Green Spot houses (they made other things beside green spots including different colored bases.) that often had fuzzy windows. These may have been the main line putz houses for the Woolworth co. back in the day. I had a church that was in a box with a Woolworth price tag done by this company. I have only two other houses (one quite tiny and early) with communication of light to a lean too or added room. The holes appear to usually be window punches and sometimes used door punches. This green spot company also had holes that communicated light to their towers on churches and usually these worked pretty well. I think this is an important observation. tkh

Just a P.S. I have a couple of churches that had original holes in the back of the towers for illumination. One is a GIANT blue church and is pictured on Papateds site as HOM for August of 2006

Post by **paulrace** » Tue Dec 16, 2014 7:40 am

Thanks, Tom, that's what I figured. For folks who have trouble navigating the Papa Ted's Place page, here's a photo of "big blue" AFTER Tom restored it.

To see all the photos of that church, including "before" photos, click the following link and scroll down until you see "August."

http://cardboardchristmas.com/papateds/Hom2006.html

Post by **Tom Hull** » Sun Dec 21, 2014 9:32 pm

At the time of writing that church tower with hole was the only factory made one I had seen. I think have managed to find a smaller church with a small round hole in the tower. ONLY THE PAPER EXPORT LABEL series has holes between wings. A very superior product in many ways.