Over the past few years the Bowlus Fine Arts Center has been refurbishing its doors. With the exterior doors finished, the interior doors are getting some much needed maintenance.
Utley’s Auto Body has been working on stripping down the doors to the original steel by sandblasting them.
“There were just layers and layers of paint from over the years,” owner Curtis Utley said. “Now, it’s like having a new canvas to work with.”
The refurbishing has to take place during the summer months because crew members spend about four days in the fine arts center sanding down the frames and painting them.
“The doors can be taken away to be sandblasted and that helped with time,” Bowlus director Susan Raines said. “Altogether it takes about a month.”
The doors are original to the Center since its beginning almost 49 years ago. Over those years the doors would be painted with oil paint every year, Raines said.
Natural wear and tear has taken its toll on the doors and the paint began to chip away. Evidence of years of hands touching the doors and instruments banging against them can now be seen.
The plan is to do roughly three doors per summer, Utley said.
Raines said the project spans seven years.
“We want to get as many as (Utley’s) can do per summer, done,” she said.
Originally, the Bowlus was going to look into replacing all its exterior doors — a project that would cost about $2,200. By refurbishing the doors they paid one-third of that cost, Raines said.
The exterior doors altogether cost roughly $8,000 and the three interior doors Utley’s is working on over the summer are about $1,600.
“We use the little money that we have in most efficient way we can,” Raines said.
The doors should be finished by the end of July, Utley said, definitely before school starts.
