New Siding Project – Part 10

If you want to catch up with all my new siding project posts, click HERE.

So over the weekend, we got almost all the old siding removed from the house. Saturday, we worked on the west side of the house. In the early morning it was cool, but that afternoon when the sun came around, it got really hot, and the sweat kept dripping into my eyes. It was so miserable. But we got the west side done by the end of the day.

And we found what we expected to find: the other end of the original house. See the old roof line and exterior wall there on the left end of the house?

So the original house was probably just 2 rooms. It served as the hired man’s house and was located up the hill from the main house. After the main farm house burned in the 1920s, the owners, Fay and Pearl, moved the hired man’s house down the hill, dug a foundation for it, and set it down. Then they added onto it. Sometime in the 1960s, (I think), the dormer and room that juts out to the right in the above photo was added.

According to Jay, Fay’s grandson, 

“Fay added the dormers and closed the door on the northwest corner of the house in the late 40s.”

Here’s the east side of the original house,

and here’s the west.

It was just a simple rectangle, less than 500 square feet.

And one the west side, we found where there had been another door. Someone, probably Dick, who was Fay and Pearl’s son, filled it in with a pale colored wood.

According to Jay, Fay’s grandson,

“Fay added the dormers and closed the door on the northwest corner of the house in the late 40s.”

On Sunday, we stopped removing siding when the updated forecast showed rain predicted for Tuesday evening. Knowing that most of our house was now exposed to the elements and comtemplating horrifying images of rain leaking into the inside of the walls causing the insulation to become saturated and collapse into a messy pile at the bottom of all our walls, we switched gears and called in the troops, ie, Harland’s brother Gerald, and his wife Ramona, both carpenters by trade.

Monday morning, they arrived bright and early to help Harland (I was at work) put up the foamboard insulation.

Early in the day, it began to rain, and it rained all day. But fortunately it rained straight down and never amounted to more than a sprinkle, albeit a steady all-day version.  By the time I got home from work, the foam board was all up, and Gerald and Ramona heading home. All that remained was to tape all the seams. So Harland and I set to work as it was forecast to rain more that night. I changed clothes and got to work alongside Harland taping all the seams.

We kept at it until after sundown, about 8:30. Then we went in, ate supper, showered and fell into bed.

Tuesday morning as I headed off to work, Harland got back to it finishing up the last of the seams…

as the storm clouds moved in from the southwest.

Muffin kept an eye on the action following Harland from window to widow:

Kitty watched, wide-eyed and nervous, ready to make a run to the closet at the first loud noise:

She spent the weekend hiding either under the couch,

or in the closet, and Monday, Harland came in to use the bathroom and found Kitty hiding behind the toliet. Poor Kitty.  In the picture above, I was trying to get a pic of poor Kitty under the couch, but guess who slid in sideways into the frame and became a world-class pain-in-the-butt photo bomber?

So here’s what the house looks like right now:

Later this week, we’ll remove the rest of the siding and apply the last of the foamboard.

The dormer got new siding when Harland bought the house over 10 years ago as the roof was leaking and he had no choice but to replace the roof and update the siding on the dormer.

Still to go is the removal and replacement of six windows and one door, application of a vapor barrier over the whole house, and then the finale – THE NEW SIDING!

Stay tuned.

If you want to catch up with all my new siding project posts, click HERE.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo