This is the original location of the website (to see the new "work in progress", click here) for our house. I will be adding the new content to the new site as soon as I get things finished. Until then, this version of the site has a lot more pictures.
This picture was taken shortly before we bought the house. Most likely, around 1999 or 2000. To view detailed pictures of what the place looked like when we first bought it, click here.
This picture was taken in November 2003. If you compare it to the picture above
it, you can see a little bit of the work we have done on the outside part of
the house (on this side, at least). The main things we've done so far were to
put a new roof on the upper part of the main
house, got some of the upper part painted in the
new colors, put new "old fashioned"
half-round rain gutters on the upper part of the main house, and built the
fence. Below, I'll show some better detailed pictures as well as some inside
pictures of some of the stuff we've finished.
The east side of the main house with the nasty old white roof and k-style cheesy
rain gutters still on it. Once we started removing the old roof, we found that
there were 4 layers of asphalt shingles, as well as the old original wood roof.
When we were finished tearing off all the old shingles, we had hauled almost
6 tons of shingles to the dump. That's a lot of weight taken off the top of
the house!
The front of the main house and the tower with the old roof and gutters. I hadn't
started any of the new painting on this part yet either.
Tower detail.
Tower full shot. You can see the lilac bush (purple flowers) is almost in full
bloom as well.
The west side of the main house with the old roof and gutters.
The east side of the main house with the new roof on it. Since the house originally
had a real wood roof, we wanted to try and duplicate it, but since we can't
afford a real wood roof, we had to settle with the next best thing. This
is a laminated style asphalt shingle roof that's supposed to look like the
old wood roofs. The old nasty gutters are gone and the fascia board is totally
exposed now. The dormer/peak at the top has been totally removed, brought
down to the ground, repaired, rebuilt, painted, and taken back up and re-installed.
The dormer/peak has the all-new color scheme on it. Present are the dark
green, light green, dark purple, medium purple, dark gold, medium gold,
and light cream (7 of the 9 colors that will cover the house when it's finished).
The Front as seen from across the street.
The front of the main house again with a closer view of the tower. When we
started pulling the white asphalt shingles off the tower roof, it revealed
that the original decorative wood shingles were still pretty much intact.
So, we decided to keep that part wood. We will start restoration of that
roof in spring 2004.
While working on the roof, I took the opportunity to re-flash the tower,
etc. To do this, i had to pull a lot of the siding and stuff off of the
side of the tower. In this picture, you can see the new felt that I put
up, etc. Also visible in this picture is the decorative shingling that I've
restored in the left side of the front dormer.
Colors used in this area are the dark green, dark purple, medium purple,
light purple, and dark gold. The remainder of the dormer's shingling will
follow this same pattern.
The west side of the main house with the new roof. The old gutters are gone
from here, like the rest of the house. You can see the original decorative
wood shingles on the roof of the tower pretty good from this view. The dormer/peak
on this side is completely removed in this picture. The dormer/peak on this
side was in a lot worse condition than the east side.
After several trial and error color combinations, we finally decided upon a
paint scheme that we think will work on our house. When we purchased it, the
house's main body color was a "smurf" blue, with light yellow trim
and greyish purple accents here and there as seen in the picture above. I decided
to start painting on the back (North) side of the house so that we could see
the colors in full scale without the rest of the neighborhood getting a look.
If we didn't like the colors, we could always choose new ones. The new paint
scheme is 3 colors, with 3 shades of each, for a total of 9. The main body of
the house, where the lap siding is, will be a medium sage green. On the upper
part of the main body, where the decorative shingling is, will be a slightly
lighter shade of the sage green. The main trim will all be the light cream color.
Then, the dark sage green and the dark purple will be used for accents on the
trim, etc. The window sashes will be the dark green. And finally, the medium
purple, light purple, dark gold, and medium gold will be used on the decorative
shingling in the dormers/peaks and anywhere else a new color needs to be introduced.
Painting the house is quite a chore. It seems that before it was painted the blue/cream/purple combination, it was solid white. From what we hear, it was solid white for several decades. This was clearly evident when i began stripping the old paint off the siding. In some places, there's easily 1/8 of an inch of paint globbed onto the wood. While stripping it down to the bare wood with a heat gun, I have found some of, what we believe to be, the original paint colors from when the house was built back in 1889. The original colors include 2 shades of green, a pink, a mustard and an orange. We're not sure if these were all on the house at the same time, or not.
Here's a sample of what the house looks like once all the old paint is stripped
off with the heat gun, then sanded smooth. It's amazing how the wood looks brand
new, even though it's almost 115 years old.
This picture shows a good example of the new paint scheme. From the top, the
crown moulding is the dark sage green, with the bottom portion painted the dark
purple. The small portion of the fascia board that shows below the crown molding
is the light sage green. The underside of the eave is the light cream, the corner
moulding is the dark sage green, again. The flat trim is the light cream, again,
then the wood lap siding is the medium sage green.
This is a full side shot showing the old paint being stripped off.
This is as far as I got before the weather got too cold to paint anymore. The
window is almost completed with the light cream trim, the dark purple on the
top, and the dark sage sash and storm window frames.
Here I am getting ready to install the new half-round gutters. You can see the
fascia board has been fully prepped and painted the light green color. Also,
the underside of the eave has been stripped and painted the light gold.
This is a good picture that shows all the gutter brackets installed on the freshly
prepped fascia boards. Also, you get a good view of the new roof and some of
the new flower beds we added.
The north side of the main house with the new gutters being installed. We didn't
have enough time in the Summer of 2003 to re-roof lower part of the main house.
The ugly old shingles are still visible here.
This is the point where the gutters on the upper part of the main house will
come together and be down spouted to the lower section of gutters.
This is the east side of the main house where the lower roof begins. I'm getting
the area ready for the new gutters, so that the upper gutters can drain into
them.
This shows the meeting of the gutters and the downspout down to the lower gutters.
This is a detail of the gutter brackets that are next to the tower, on each
side. The remainder of the brackets are the single curl style as seen in the
other pictures.
This is what the side yard looked like when we moved in. There were trumpet
vines growing all over the sides of the main house, breezeway, and summer kitchen/servant's
quarters. The only flower beds were the two right in front of the breezeway
and summer kitchen/servant's quarters. They were totally overgrown and unkempt.
Here are the beginning stages of building the fence...
Here I am working on the first section. The color we chose is the same
light gold/cream color that we're using on the house's new paint scheme.
The front of the fence is finished. on the far right, you can see the beginnings
of the new planting beds. Eventually, we plan to fill in the entire area inside
the fence with flower beds. We also have purchased a fountain that will be
the centerpiece of the whole courtyard.
The rest of the fence is now finished. Also, some new flower beds are being
created.
Here is a picture of what the courtyard/garden area look like now. We only have
flower beds in about 1/3 of the area finished.
This is by the front porch.
This is one of the beds next to the summer kitchen/servant's quarters.