Museum in renovated carriage house

We are in the process of setting up a small museum in a renovated
circa 1872 brick carriage house that served as town library since
1921.  What type of paint is preferable for the drywall?  Hopefully
water-base latex is satisfactory?

The next problem we have is how to treat the 1921 French doors which
were uncovered when the tall steel bookcases were removed.  Would it
be sufficient to install Plexiglas or Lexan on the exterior of these
doors and their side panels?  We would like to keep them in place.
These doors were installed in the original carriage door with a wide
fanlight across both the doors and side panels at the top.

We are then faced with the problem of display cases.  A retired
carpenter has volunteered to make these for us if we purchase
materials.  He wants to use melamine coated 1" flakeboard (yes, I
know it is loaded with formaldehyde). Would the melamine coating be
sufficient to prevent offgassing into the cabinet?  If so, would it
be sufficient to give the back and any unfinished edges several
coats of water-base polyurethane?

I know pegboard is out because of the formaldehyde.  I expect even
thoroughly coating pegboard with polyurethane would unacceptable. Is
barrier board stable enough to drill holes so that it could be used
as pegboard?  Exhibits would probably be changed 4-6 times per year.

Georgianne Bowman
Renovation Chairman


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 16:46
                 Distributed: Friday, January 31, 2003
                       Message Id: cdl-16-46-024
                                  ***