This month, John Canning Painting and Conservation Studios wraps up its most recent gilding assignment with the completion of the cash room ceiling (how appropriate) in the US Treasury Building.

The project, originally scheduled to take nine weeks was completed in five by Canning Studios' expert gilding staff.

The project start was delayed by two weeks when Canning Studios staff discovered that the base paint used on the ceiling by another contractor did not have the proper finish to accept the gold-leaf sizing that is the foundation for metal leafing.

This situation underscores how important it is for all contractors on a project to understand the subsequent processes to be applied to any area before starting a project. This delay - and the extra expense for repainting - could have been avoided by doing a simple materials test to evaluate the base paint before proceeding.

During the course of the project, the owners asked if it would be possible to finish the project 2 weeks early. Because John Canning Studios has done so many large scale, fast-track gilding projects (such as Radio City Music Hall, War Memorial Opera and City Hall dome in San Francisco), they were able to staff up by pulling their experienced gilders temporarily away from other projects to accommodate the request.

The job was finished in 5 weeks and the punchlist review came up 100% clean.

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