The Historic District

This is a picture of my 1920 workman's

This is the most recent pictures of our old house.

There were 3 layers of siding. Rotten hardboard. Under that was insulbrick.

The bottom layer was 6" bevel cedar siding. All of it on the old part of the house was in good condition. I had to replace everything on the addition to the rear.

Under the insulbrick the siding and sheathing was rotted all the way to the studs. In one area I had to replace one of the studs even. I replaced the sheathing with plywood. And, I discovered I could still buy 6" bevel cedar siding. I installed it over tarpaper as the original would have been. My only departure from traditional methods of the era was my use of plywood sheathing. These photos are taken after priming and painting.

I still have some window restoration to do and replacement of some modern plastic windows with originals. Sadly, one of the modern Windows I had to put in myself, as when we bought the house it had been abandoned for a few years. It was Feb. of 2013 and I just bought a cheap window to replace the demolished original. Just to button up the place and start the drying out process.

I'm delighted I was actually able to get the attachment of photos thing to work.

Thanks, Sipi

I have quite a few of that style house in my hood, mostly dating around 1910. One of them has been for sale for awhile, but it has a railroad crossing in its front yard. I think they gave up on selling it.

Looks like you did a great job on it, nice color combination.

Your house reminds me of the ones that a lot of coal companies built to house their workers in KY and WV in the 1910s and 1920s. My grandparents bought one in the early 1950s when one of the companies auctioned off their housing inventory. It was constructed surprisingly well and used good quality materials, especially since it was considered a "cheap" house in its day.

It looks like you have done well with the exterior!

Thank you for the compliments!

1918Colonial. The original front portion of the house was built in 1920 as a workman's cottage by the lumber co. that founded the town we live in. I think in similarity to the company houses you were referring to. The front portion of the house was very well built, but simple. The original windows were wood with spring loaded pins instead of weight and pulley. And the walls were originally dry walled. The framing is 2x4's on 16" centers.

The addition of course is a very different story.

Thanks, Sipi

It looks really nice. I love the colors. If you are posting from an ipod or ipad it might be that the pics got turned because of that. They posted OK, we can see fine. maybe playing with the option where it locks the screen in a certain orientation has an effect that causes them to display upright and post sideways.

that window doesn't' look so bad. I think I'd just paint the frame white to match and it's nothing a blind man on a galloping horse would notice It would be fun to lift that house since it appears to be little and sitting off the ground, you could double the size.