Siding Removal
When we first moved into our house, there were a lot of things that needed updating. The berber carpet and yellow paint were the first things to go. After that we knocked down a wall in our kitchen and added some new cabinetry. We’ve been here for over a year now, and the inside if finally looking fairly nice. The outside has been a different story. Our whole house is made of atlas block, a structural brick. Sometime between now and 1956 when it was built somebody thought it would be a nice idea to wrap the whole house in blue aluminum siding. It’s been an eyesore to us ever since we bought it, but we were afraid to start tearing it down because we didn’t know what kind of condition the exterior walls would be in. Last night a good friend stopped by to measure for a new door we are putting in (more on that later) and in the process we needed to peek behind the siding to be able to plan for the larger door. Once I started pulling that ugly blue down, I just couldn’t stop. The result is refreshing and wonderful. The original atlas block has never been painted and is in fairly good shape. The gabled section has some old wood lap siding that is painted a great dark pea green. It will need to be replaced eventually, but for now it looks wonderful compared to how it was. Best part about it is that it was absolutely free (in fact I’m sure we’ll make some money off the aluminum) and it is taking the house back to the way it was originally designed.
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10 Responses to “Siding Removal”
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Well done. Am in a similar situation. Our abode was wrapped in vinyl. Have heard rumors of the original wood siding being in good shape but have yet to venture down that road. Still plenty to work on inside.
Looking forward to learning more about your front door.
Cheers,
-Baz
Oh holy smokes…that unpainted block looks great! And wasn’t it nice that they lovingly protected it for you all these years? We love the rare unpainted block houses in our hood…trying to “unpaint” ours now.
We had vinyl siding on our ranch. Taking it off wall by wall to reveal the 10 inch painted cedar siding underneath. Paint in bad shape. Nothing a whole summer working on my house can’t solve. Yippeee!
Hooray! I hope the rest of it is in the same great shape. I’m glad our house is brick, though the mortar needs to be repaired in a lot of places. (any advice?)
Hmm It Is actually a pretty cool look.
Do you know anything about the history of atlas brick? I think my house is made out of it–I’m always saying, “It’s not cinderblock!”
It looks great! Looks like you had to pull down some insulation along with the siding, though. Too bad block/brick has very, very low R-value.
Really nice piece, Creede. Love the score…and the final results!
Guess I’ll rain on your parade a bit. I noticed that there was some insulation under that siding, my guess is you just removed most if not all of the insulation from your walls.
It was a half inch of rigid foam, about R3. I knew I was loosing it. As we remodel the inside we will continue to frame out the walls and add a proper amount of insulation.