Carpenter St. Exterior

This was a rather massive rebuild. The customers bought what they thought was a home with a new roof. Over several years, they realized that there was leaking going on which was causing plaster to crumble off. Eventually, we figured out that the roof had an insufficient drip edge, and that when the house had been resided with aluminum siding, probably in the 60s they put the siding over the original cedar siding which bumped the plane of the wall out and created the perfect place for seepage and eventual leakage to occur. The task was to tear off all the aluminum siding on this one wall of the house and then evaluate the condition beneath. I tore it off and then came to see that much of the cedar siding had been compromised and in fact the sheathing and insulation was compromised in multiple spots. So I removed all the cedar siding as well. And then repaired sheathing as necessary first replacing insulation.

And then replaced the two old pairs of windows on the first floor and on the second floor. On the first floor leading out of the living room there was a pair of old aluminum patio doors. These leaked some water and definitely air in colder months. They never used the doors so it made sense to remove them. I replaced them with three lovely antique windows I purchased from DeConstruction, Inc. a local source of older housing “ephemera” i.e. trim, windows, doors, hardware, and assorted wonderful miscellany. I have found items that I and customers didn't know they desperately needed and modified plans to use them. In this case, the three small windows were perfect. I created an opening for them and installed them. I sided this entire quarter of the house with cedar siding and trimmed all the windows. I painted all new wood.

The wing wall. I have been calling this wall which continues the roof line to the driveway, a wing wall, sometimes a bat wing wall. I am not finding any references online to such a creature, but until someone contacts me with the true name I will continue to call it the wing wall. It was in very poor condition previously deemed not worth rescuing. The customer would have been willing to have me tear it down and finish the wall off, but I thought it was worth saving. I tore off the siding on the non-streetside of the wall adjacent to the house. I needed to augment the rotted joists and re-sheathe the wall. I restored the oculus. An oculus (from Latin oculus 'eye'; pl. oculi) is a circular opening in the center of a dome or in a wall. I re-roofed it and shingled it. I believe it is a striking visual addition to the house.

In multiple pictures, you can see a relatively massive trim piece at the very top of the siding immediately beneath the drip edge of the roof. I fabricated this and installed it all the way around the house to address other probable leakage sites. I feel it was a beautiful and useful answer to the problem.