I had always hoped there would be original siding underneath the aluminum siding that was put on the house in the 60's. It wasn't until we started the kitchen renovation that we had our answer of what was underneath the old faded aluminum siding.
When we replaced the kitchen windows (no worries, they weren't original windows) and opened back up the original window space to let more light in, we uncovered original German siding. What shape the siding was underneath was a mystery. It would remain a mystery, as we were in the middle of a huge kitchen renovation last summer and there was no way we were about to pull off all the siding and start another enormous project.
We knew there was original bead board, it is painted a beautiful green and was underneath sheets of plywood. It had been covered up for years. Why I am not sure, but I'm glad it was covered up years ago rather than removed. Our curiosity got the best of us last summer and we pulled down just one sheet of the plywood on the porch ceiling just to see what was underneath.
It wasn't until this summer that we decided to go ahead pull the rest of the plywood off to see if the bead board extended the entire porch ceiling. To our excitement, it was all there! Just a few pieces missing but it looked great!
My husband started peeling back years of cover ups on the front porch.
We removed the aluminum siding on the front porch area to reveal beautiful German siding that is in perfect condition.
We removed all the plywood that covered the porch ceiling....and the light fixture I couldn't wait to get rid of.
Before I continue, I want to share a "BEFORE" to better give an idea of what our house looked like before removing some of the siding. Our house is covered in a mixture of old aluminum siding in desperate need of new paint, vinyl siding and metal soffits. We had already started peeling back the layers of aluminum wraps just before I took these, I knew I wanted a good before picture.
My husband took a peek what was under the vinyl siding on the front face of the porch, looked at me and said, "you are not going to believe what is under here!".
I was beyond excited after removing the aluminum siding to see that the original German siding looked so good.
But taking a peek under that vinyl siding, I couldn't contain my excitement and could not believe that such gorgeous detail had been covered up!
After removing the all the vinyl siding he started removing all the soffits around the porch.
And the gorgeous detail didn't stop with the fish scale siding.
Little by little we started to see a glimpse into the past. A little bit of what our 1921 home originally looked like.....and it was beautiful.
We have our work cut out for us.
There are a few pieces of quarter round missing, lots of paint stripping, priming and painting to do, replacing the porch banisters and railings (not original to the house we discovered) and also some decisions to make on paint color.
But when we are finished, it will be gorgeous!
And the "AFTER".
My husband was taking a much deserved break. We picked an extremely hot Saturday to start this project.
0 comments