July 6, 2005
the last shingles for a while
Almost one year after we started, we’ve finally finished pulling off the awful shingles that covered most of the house.
These shingles were the vinyl siding of their day. In fact, we’ve seen more than a few houses around here where vinyl has been put up right over one or more layers of shingles. One boarding-house slumlord that I spoke to appreciated the layers as insulation. The shingles were applied back in 1963 as a maintenance-saver, we assume to replace having to paint for the foreseeable future.
They are asphalt shingles like you’d use on a roof. They are the ‘plain shingle’ style, as opposed to any of the ‘ghetto brick‘ styles. They are nailed at each corner, overlapping end-to-end, over a layer of stapled tarpaper directly over the original wood siding.
We’d made some progress last year getting some of the shingles down. We did some replacing and priming of the wood underneath; that is the color difference in the photos below.
Under the shingles, the paint has been baked for 40+ years and is pretty loose. Some areas, mostly at the edges of walls or windows, trapped water and are split. Probably 1/3 of the siding will need to be replaced.
phone pic
On the side of the house, we have a big triangle area above the windows. We could see what looked like a ridge under the shingles at the bottom of the triangle, indicating that the surface changed. We’ve been wanting to get up there since last summer and see what we had, and now we know. The pattern is angled bead-board, though a good portion of it is in bad shape.
phone pic
To get to the top of the back of the house and up into the peak on the side, the 36 foot ladder was fully extended. This put me at about 4 feet higher than my comfort level. I’ll hopefully be better about it when we get to fixing the siding and painting.
Wow - that’s going to look amazing when restored. Looks like a totally different house with the shingles off.
In Vancouver you see some houses shingled over but the material of choice seems to have been stucco (right over the wood siding). There’s a house near me and they just started pulling off the stucco - I got stupidly excited at the sight. ;)
Already a big improvement. Sorry to hear so much wood will need to be replaced, though. One of the houses I looked at while I was ’shopping’ had been sided with shingles similar to these but they had painted these white!!!
We have a few of those “brick” houses in my town. The big thing here was the asbestos shingles. I pulled 5,300 pounds of cement/asbestos shingles off my house 3 years ago. The siding was in good shape underneath, but they
butchered the window sills.
We have one of the houses in Vancouver covered in stucco. I pulled off part at the back, where I had to repair some carpenter ant damage. At least the shingles are easier to get off, just as much damage from nail holes though.
I think it looks great!
Have you started thinking color schemes?
I have a million ideas for paint colors with my house…but Rob keeps saying we’re in the middle of too many projects already. :(
Keep up the hard work! It’s going to look fabulous when it’s all done.
WOW! That house is going to look really really pretty when its all pink.
>>Have you started thinking color schemes?
One of us has always wanted a pink house… We’ll be in a position to be trying out some colors on the back in a few weeks.
Pink?