Monster House

Have you ever heard the saying “Sometimes things have to get worse before they get better”?  I think the first person who said that was restoring an old house.

At some point, we are thinking possibly in the 1980’s or so, vinyl siding was installed over the clapboard siding on this house.  The vinyl siding was in pretty good shape, but knowing the original siding was sitting under there was just too much to handle.  The vinyl siding had to go.

Over the past two weeks, with some hired help, we got all the vinyl siding off.  Here’s how it looked with the vinyl siding:

With vinyl siding

And, here’s how it looks now that it is removed:

Looks worse, huh?  I think it looks sort of like the house in the movie “Monster House”.  What do you think?

Monster House

Here’s another before:

And after:

Ya, doesn’t look good.  We have lots of prep to do before we can even think about painting, but I think this part of restoration is kind of cool.  We uncovered some of the secrets of the house.  For example, what is this door for?

And, what kind of trim was on the soffit here?

I think these little finds are exciting.  The process of trying to figure out the mysteries.  I like having all the pieces of the puzzle and enjoy the process of putting the old house puzzle together.  Sometimes, the house throws you a bone.  For example, you can see the trim on this window was removed so the vinyl siding could be installed:

But, when you are on the front porch, the original siding was left intact as were the window headers:

At least we know how it should look when it’s done.  Finding the correct trim will provide an entirely different challenge.

Another puzzle piece we found through the magic of social media.  Through research of records on the house, utilization of Ancestry.com and searching Facebook, we have connected with ancestors of the original owners of this home.  The original owners and family members of theirs lived here from the time it was built until 1996.  That’s 95 years of one family owning this home.  How amazing is that?  Last week, we received an amazing letter from one of the family members with more information on the family and a couple pictures!  Here’s how the house looked September 11, 1960:

September 11, 1960

I have to say it was very inspiring to receive the letter and the pictures.  They came at just the right time and provided a little push of motivation.  I only hope we can do the house proud and return it to its former glory.