We found the missing door! (Facade progress)

[KirstenN]

Hey folks;

My husband and I had a couple of days to devote to our crazy concrete 1913 farmhouse this past week. There was in fact a gable door under the siding, just as I suspected!
Here's the original facade with some of the original red paint showing, plus three kinds of siding on top:

farmhouse facade small.jpg (69.22 KiB) Viewed 3001 times

And here's how it looked when we left Friday morning:

farmhouse facade Oct small.jpg (52.28 KiB) Viewed 2999 times

I wish we'd been able to get the last section off, but we had a ferry to catch! The door seems to be original white-painted beadboard. I'll be curious to see if there's any evidence of an inner door under the drywall inside.

There is remarkably little to repair where the wood strapping was. I was afraid we'd have to re-parge huge sections, but it's really just nail holes to patch before we paint. I'm so excited!

Kirsten

[melissakd]

Hooray!
Hooray for hidden doors and windows! (I wonder how many are accounted for on these boards?)
Hooray for Canadian-vernacular-whatever-the-style-of-your-house-is-called!

I saw your pic of the painted faux brick on another thread. It's adorable. Like grained wood furniture and woodwork, or plastic bathroom wall tile, I feel it doesn't often get the respect you're giving it, but it ought to.

MKD

[Lynners]

Yay! I just love those second story doors to no where - so many of them never have a balcony added.

[angolito]

amazing...... what a difference.

[nezwick]

Oh WOW, your house looks awesome without the aluminum siding. I still can't wrap my head around how people thought that looked "good".

[KristenS]

Oh my! Incredible! That whole side of the house just makes sense now. The peaked roof over the "hidden" door just jumps out now. It's wonderful. Absolutely wonderful!

You should get an award for what you're doing for this house.

[KirstenN]

Thanks for all the lovely comments... at the end of a not-so-great day, this makes me feel good!

MelissaKD, we call it an "Ontario Cottage", but I really don't know if that's correct! There are tons of houses of that general shape on the island.

Lynners, yes, lots of these doors too! My dad calls them "in-law doors", but another book I'm reading calls them "suicide doors". We plan to add a porch/balcony in the next two years as a 100th birthday present to the place, so I'll definitely be on here collecting opinions on something suitable.

Angolito and KristenS, thanks! I really do think it will look wonderful once it's painted, the trim is fixed, the original storm windows are found and put back on and the aluminum screen door is gone. Lots of work still to do...

Nezwick, I had to sit through my own mother saying that vinyl siding had helped to clean up such-and-such houses over Thanksgiving dinner! That's why I come here...

[SkipW]

Hey the house looks so much better after your work! I'm sure it's going to end up stunning!

Hopefully you'll find the missing stairs next

[wletson]

I can't believe you removed that great siding! It made the house unique. Sorry, could keep a straight face for long. tee hee hee

I never thought about the fact that you would have to schedule your work up there around the ferry. You would have to keep your eye on the clock on the day you were heading back south, wouldn't you?

House looks great, by the way.

[triguy128]

The house is begging for some real operable shutters now that you finally found the real facade under that crap. Probably a nice thing to have funcitonally beign on an island when a big storm comes in. Closing the shutters on the south face in the summer will really knock down the heat gain in the house too.

Looking good. Keep up the good work.


Some day we may have to make the decision to remove the aluminum on the back of our house. Although I fear it was put up for a reason and there's major stucco damage underneith. Maybe not. I'm not sure if hte stucco on the rest of the hosue is original or it it was repalced at some point.