Edmonds Band Rotunda.

The brief.

The rotunda had been stripped, repaired, and rebuilt in pieces. The brief from the restoration team was direct: complete the painting in a way that respected the heritage record, did not overstate the restoration, and gave the structure a system that would protect the timber and metalwork for the long programme of public use ahead of it.

Three constraints shaped the work. First, the heritage record. The original colour and finish were documented; the repaint needed to match the documented standard, not improvise. Second, the substrate. Restored timber, restored ironwork, and new timber where original sections had been replaced beyond repair. Each surface required its own preparation and primer. Third, the building's role. It is a civic structure on a public site, used daily. The work needed to programme around public access and finish to a standard that did not look fresh on the first day and worn by the next year.

The programme allowed for staged access to the structure as scaffolding was erected and removed in sections. We sequenced our crews around the access plan and the weather.

The work.

We began with sampling. The heritage colour record was cross-checked against the documented standard. Test patches were applied to discrete areas of the rotunda, photographed, and signed off by the restoration team before any committed work went on the building.

Substrate preparation took the longest single share of the programme. Restored timber needed to be hand-prepared to remove loose primer and any residue from the restoration process. New timber needed to be sanded back to bare and primed to the system specification. Restored ironwork required removal of any surface corrosion, surface treatment, and a primer compatible with the topcoat system. We hand-prepared at architraves, mouldings, balustrades, and at the dome's detail work, where mechanical preparation would have risked damage to the restored detail.

The system was a specified Resene heritage-appropriate build. Primer, undercoat, and two topcoat applications, applied to the manufacturer's stated dry film thickness for each coat. We logged the application: weather, substrate temperature, ambient temperature, dew point margin, and the area covered each day. Where the dew point margin was tight or the wind picked up enough to compromise application, we stopped. Heritage paintwork applied outside the manufacturer's window does not last; the temptation to push on through marginal weather was disciplined out of the programme.

Detail work mattered as much as the elevations. Hand-cut paintwork at the junction between joinery and metalwork. Sympathetic feathering at points where new timber met restored sections. The dome required the most patience: a curved substrate with returned detail, applied from a working platform with limited reach for any one stage.

We worked alongside the scaffolding contractor, the heritage carpenter, and the restoration design team. Variations were documented and agreed in writing. The full coat-by-coat photographic record went into the project file, available to the restoration team and the asset owner at handover.

The finish.

The rotunda reads as a heritage building that has been brought back, not as a heritage building made to look new. The colour sits as the record intended. The detail at the balustrade and the dome catches the light the way it would have when the building first opened. The system has the dry film thickness the manufacturer's warranty depends on, and the documentation to support the warranty over the period ahead.

The brief was to restore, not to refresh. We think the finish honours that.