The Exterior

The Project we have been waiting for!!!!!!!

After seeing this of  picture of our house from 1906, we were dying to see if all that detail was still underneath the plastic siding.  On Halloween 2010 Dave started pulling off siding and couldn't have been more happy about what he found.

The original fish scales were there and in good shape!

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A couple of days later, we got out the pry bars and attacked the side porch.

 Here is a picture of the original side porch in 1906.

 Here it is in winter of 2009.

This picture shows how the plastic siding covers everything.

 The windows were compromised, when the weight lines were cut to add insulation to the weight cavities. 

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The best discovery was seeing that the decorative column bases were still there!



Under the green indoor/outdoor carpet and layer of thick plywood was the original tongue and groove wood floor.

 

The view from the side door is messy. I enjoy seeing it like this more than covered in plastic siding as before.

 Moving on to the second floor (I'm glad I'm not afraid of heights)...

Just me, a pry bar, and my house... little by little the siding comes off. Removing each piece reveals that the original wood siding isn't in bad shape.

The best view of the house.

The front porch is a bit of a train wreck. It's sagging and leaning forward. One corner is even tearing away from the house. No biggie!  We will jack it up and reinforce the joists.  One day, we will sit on the porch swing remembering how bad it looked.

This is the side porch. This is where we are concentrating right now.
We started by removing the half walls to restore the decorative spindles.

When the walls were removed we found that all the original column bases are in very good shape.

However the fronts were removed to make a flush serface for the plastic siding

My Dad helped build all new panels to replace the front of the column bases and if you ask me you cant tell they are new at all.

Now all they need is primer, paint and they are perfect!

This photo shows the column bases stripped and ready to be repaired

( Its also showing Dave painting...more on that later)

Here Dave is attaching the new "front" that my Dad made

I think they look perfect !
They are an exact match and i couldn't be happier

So from there I have taken on the column bases as my personal project

No help from Dave at all!

After removing peices that couldnt be repaired

I cut new ones then glued and nailed them in place

Here is the column base that is all patched up

This is a great photo showing a before and after

The column base is separating restored siding from untouched siding

After all the bases were patched and puttied i painted them our base color

Just seeing them in that cream color really made it seem like i had gotten so much done!

Then i painted the inside of the boxes white

What a difference!

Now its time for the tedious job....the accent  color

I really wanted the "boxes" on the column bases to pop

Our friends Valdez and Kearl surprised us when they came over to help

We got so much done with three people taping and painting that it went by really fast

In fact we got so much done today we were able to move on to another section

Thanks guys!

The next day we had to peel off a little more plastic siding

that was covering the sofits of the porch

I thought he looked like Super Mario with fireball power in that outfit!

(sorry back to the point)

When Dave removed the gutters he found crown moulding!!!!

I was jumping up and down until Dave let me go up the ladder and see it...

This is my next area of concentration...the lattice

This is going to be a looooooong project, they need allot of TLC

Dave isn't sure i can do this one by myself.....

I reminded him that i did the pillars by myself and he walked away shaking his head and smiling

I started by removing rotted pieces and nailing back loose ones

The i puttied all nail holes and cracks....molding and sanding as i went

I sat on that paint can in front of this piece of lattice for a whole day

I was very meticulous about getting all old paint off..

We found traces of dark green paint on these

Here it is after the first coat of paint.....Beautiful

scroll back up if you cant believe what it used to look like.....I have to keep reminding myself!

Meanwhile Dave was working on the siding

Scraping, caulking, and sanding as he moved along

He stood on that ladder long than i was sitting on that paint can!

and Luna stayed right by him all day

If I close one eye and concentrate real hard i can see the whole houses being done!