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The most visible change to the Old House will be the replacement of all of the siding. The current siding is red cedar clapboard and as you can see – it didn't stand up to the weather very well. We intend to replace the cedar siding with quarter-sawn white oak clapboard which is much closer to the original siding. The oldest pieces of siding that we have are the remnants attached to the antique window frame. This frame was removed from the north wall in the 1930's. That side of the house was protected by a lean-to (see the drawings) which protected the window. We were fortunate to find another section of intact siding from the 1940's restoration that had been preserved under the corner of the bake oven. This siding is red oak from trees that fell on the Wickham farm during the hurricane of 1938.
The Wickham family had donated it.
While we wait for our siding to be milled and shipped to us (it is coming from Granville Manufacturing in Vermont) we are preparing the walls. As you can see we have stripped quite a bit of the old siding. We have repaired the sheathing where necessary but because the sheathing is exposed to the interior we have left it mostly intact. There are some places that will require repair to the framing of the walls. As I have discussed in earlier pages the older windows leaked badly and there are some areas in the framing below the windows that we will have to repair the studs and sills. The lower section of the oak framing in the old bake oven will also be repaired soon – the white oak for the repairs has already arrived.
We have installed lead-coated copper flashing to each new window opening and also to the corners of the house and the lower wall and sill area. The corner boards and mud boards are being installed on the north side. Notice the extreme angle on some of the corners. The corner boards and mud boards are 5/4" white oak and, if you look closely, you will see that they are fastened with a modern version of an antique nail – square cut wrought iron with a galvanized coating – and the heads have been hammered to a rosehead finish. We hope to receive our first shipment of clapboard in the next week and get to work on the walls.
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