Windows & siding

 I've shown you these first photos already, they're of the house the day that we bought it.

One of the first things that we did was replace the windows, siding, and doors.  Under the cement shingle siding, we found a layer of tar paper and under that: the original clapboard siding (surprise!).

We removed it all, as well as what remained of "insulation" after all of those years. 

                                                                                                             

 A friend of my husband, who grew up just across the street and visited here regularly for many years, took some of the clapboard siding and "reclaimed" it for a few things in his own home.                                                                               He did a beautiful job, never would I have imagined that someone could strip, sand, and refinish 100+ year old wood siding to make such gorgeous pieces!  

This barn-style door is my favorite example.

The windows and doors were trickier than we thought they'd be.  I'm not sure that either of us expected to find bark on the timbers that were used to build the house.

Before you ask... yes, that's modern drywall instead of plaster.  This is one of 3 rooms in the house that had been drywalled at least partially, over the last 40 years.  You'll see in future posts that that wasn't the case in 95% of the house.

Another challenge was that while windows in old houses are generally larger than homes built in the 1990s, apparently doors are not.  Our front door was a whopping 30" and the interior doors were almost all about 24".  Yes, I said "about".

While levels, try squares and tape measures had all been invented many years before this house was built, they were either too expensive for most people to buy, or perhaps they weren't the "manly" way to build.  In any event, none were used in the building of my house.

We took the opportunity before putting up the new siding to expand the exterior door from the kitchen to the back garden from a 32" to a 5' wide set of french doors.

This greatly increased air movement & ventilation as well as the amount of natural sunlight in the kitchen. 

                                                                             It took two years to finish... wait, no, it's still not really complete.  But, it's MOSTLY complete (notice that little corner to the upper right of the french doors in the photo above).  There are just so many major things to be done, that minor finishes end up taking a backseat.                                               Stay tuned and I'll fill you in on that next time.