The Historic District

Alright well as I am removing aluminum off of the eaves, I found that my eaves seem to be quite damaged in some places. I found on the west side around the bay windows, my beadboard was ripped out and replaced with now warped, waterdamaged plywood (that was under the siding). I also started on the east side (haven't got to the south side yet) and found that the beadboard was present but appears rotted. I found beadboard online so replacing it I suppose won't be too difficult.

But I haven't really seen a lot of old houses have so badly damaged eaves. What would have caused it? a leaky roof? siding? In the case of the part with plywood that would seem to indicate it was damaged before they put siding. And I'm also interested in knowing what can be done to minimize problems in the future.

Also I found when the beadboard gets around to the sides of the house, instead of being mitered like it is on the front, it just starts anew. Is this something that was considered acceptable in Victorian times or did someone else change it down the line? I would have figured it would be mitered all the way around the entire house. Should I change it to be mitered or when I replace the rotted beadboard to just redo it exactly as it was?

What I found


What I was expecting to find everywhere.


Thanks,

I would go with the metered, perhaps there was damage in the past and the homeowner at the time took the easy way? I can't imagine that someone building a fine house would take a shortcut like that.

You said there was plywood in some places, maybe the person covering with the siding used what they had that was good to patch and attach to, in this case they re-configured the beadboard.

See where the support structure is on the non-mitered portions-I would bet the non mitering is because there wasn't anything to nail it to where the joint would have been.

The lack of a joist to nail to seems like the most likely answer for that. I've seen other houses have that at the side where it just starts anew, however those houses didn't have beadboard.