Working on the Old House #1

We continue to try and bring my neglected old home back from the brink. I have very few photos of the earlier process on this place, because I wasn’t intending to document this project. But as I wait to finish up the MisAdventures , this will keep me disciplined in making blog posts.

First we address the exterior – it all has to be sealed in before we can work inside. Lost siding, missing roof shingles all have to be repaired before the next step.

This area of the exterior vinyl siding that was damaged in a storm. Broken pieces were removed and  replaced, using siding off the back of the garage to make sure it was a match.

This was a pretty easy fix that took a couple hours – after a couple years of me putting off the repairs.

The first step is getting the door secure so we can remove the old porch windows. I have no photos of removing the original old door. It was drafty and the original door and casing were held in place with 4 nails – apparently they were pretty stingy with nails in 1920. Here I’ve added a new insulated door. There was a lot of work here, with threshold transitions and lots of woodwork fiddling.

Since the original door was over 8 feet tall – and the new door is a standard 80″ tall, some trim gymnastics were needed. I made new casings to cover the new opening while keeping the original plaster lath walls with wallpaper intact. I used the original back band trim on the outside edge. Since the door casing is wider than the original, the top back band trim was too short. I cut the trim in two and added a small center decorative element to take up the shortfall. The trim was gel stained to match existing trim.

And here we go – a modest start on a low cost renovation on my old house. It won’t be fancy, but neither am I.