We knew we needed to fix the four gutters on each corner of our house for a couple years. They were sagging and clearly didn't drain properly. This was finally their year. Yay!
While we planned out that relatively simple project, we found an opportunity to plan ahead a bit. Our Grand Plan for the house is to update the farmhouse to look more like the very contemporary addition the previous owners had designed and built back in 2011. This includes new windows (the cheap vinyl ones are starting to fog anyway), new siding (the LP stuff is far from great), and new soffits (the white beadboard screams "I'm country!").
So we built the kids a playhouse to test out the look and feel of those updates. It does indeed look sharp. We're green to go.
Before fixing the gutters we discovered another update we could make that would help the farmhouse feel more modern (after all, the modern farmhouse aesthetic is real and we like it - mostly): remove the big and bulky cornice returns on each corner of the house. This would open up the soffits and, yeah, give the house a more contemporary look. It was K's idea.
We had no idea what we were doing when we started ripping off the first corner. By the fourth, it was a pretty straightforward process:
- Rip off all materials (shingles, sheathing, supports) down to original lumber sheathing
- Install felt
- Cut and install new LP siding boards
- Caulk
- Cut new rafter tails
- Install fascia to new tails (cut from the LP siding)
- Cut off gutter and reattach end caps
- Hang Tyvec wrap to keep out birds
It was a meticulous project, made more so by the fact 90% of it took place up on ladders. The tediousness aside, our house looks both much better and like it's sporting bandaids on open wounds. It's temporary until next year when we tackle the windows, siding, and fascia.
Compared with the (kind of sagging) cornice returns still intact…
It's of course not finished, but K and I agree it's (and will be) a significant improvement.
At one point previously, thanks to our collection of archival photos we scoured from the internet, we see the previous owner's gutter solution:
Installed!
That's right. They took a piece of gutter (let's call it a scrap they found on the side of the road) and hung it up to catch the water on that one corner. It was the only gutter and we know why: if water runs off the roof without being diverted in that corner into the egress below, it ultimately ends up pooling on the basement floor.
Clearly, those owners knew that and thought that was a good solution. It was not. To their credit, they did ultimately install four gutters, one on each corner, along with a piping system made from 3" ABS to divert the water away from the house. It almost worked. Except all the gutters, clinging to the original, rotting fascia, sagged and sloped away from their downspouts.
Now they no longer sag and we're one step closer to the look we're going for with the farmhouse. Also, we got to experience the Wenatchee transfer station when we dumped all the construction debris yesterday.
I didn't document much of the project. It was a sort of heads-down kind of thing. Figure it out and get it done. I did capture K tossing one of the first pieces of shingles, our little helper, and a bit of the final corner. That one was the last one for a reason. Tucked up under our electrical service entrance and the highest off the ground, it took a bit of finessing. "Mind your surroundings!" I always tell myself (from Christopher Nolan's Batman).
After inspecting each gutter and watching them drain during a recent rainfall, we confirmed we're good to go. If we don't get icicles this winter we'll know the project (even temporarily) was a success.
Before, from the other side…
After…
Now, time to start shopping for windows…
-/-/-/-
Footnote… 11.27.23… On our way to order our propane tank install for
the fireplace we ordered, K noticed a house we passed on The Ave. Eerily almost, it looked incredibly similar to what we're going for with ours.
Most prominently, besides the obvious similarity in the architecture of our farmhouse (three windows in front, covered front porch with the door off to the right, four-sided sloped roofline with two windows on each side), it had two of the prominent directions we're taking with ours:
- Angled soffits without the dreaded pork chops or cornice returns like we just ripped off (easily seen in first photo)
- Board and batten siding on the second level
Granted, there are some obvious deviations (the cedar shake above the board and batten and the brick layer) that give this house a much more traditional look than we'll end up with on ours. But wow, it's close! Oh, this one even sports the same
contemporary house numbers we put in a few years ago.
As I was not-at-all-ashamedly snapping these photos in their parking lot, I realized it was the office building of
Woolley's insurance agency. They're good people and clearly have good taste!
