When we moved onto this street 3 years ago, we had no idea that not only would we soon be taking care of not only our beloved Queen Anne, but also 3 other old houses on our block. This spring, we joined together with my sister and brother-in-law to purchase our first of what will (next month!) be three rental homes. All three were built as single family homes, but were converted between 100 to 50 years ago into apartments.
A little while ago, I introduced you to what we now call “Old School.” “Old School” because right now, it looks like some sort of creepy, run-down frat house.
Here is Old School a week ago:
This is the day that we cut down the ginormous willow tree in the front yard. Willow trees are my favorite, but not when they are planted so close to the house that it touches the porch and causes it to rot. And we found out today, when the stump was ground out that it was rotten in the center, so eventually it would have come down anyway, and could have taken part of the house with it. Good riddance!
Inside of Old School, we have been busy demoing. We decided to remove the attic access stairs, in order to enlarge the living room, and also because we didn’t want renters to have access to the attic. We will patch the floors with old fir, and add an access door to the attic in the ceiling.
We also opened up the wall between the living room and kitchen. The “living room” was originally just the upstairs foyer. It is much more living room sized now without the stairs and with this wall opened up.
Once and a while, we come across a treasure, like this unused compact of Coty rouge… I think possibly from the 30s/40s. It was found in a vent- I am sure some lady 70 years ago was pretty ticked she lost her brand new rouge!
While all of this has been fun, it hasn’t come close to the fun we have had the last two evenings outside.
Here is an original picture of the house: Note the porch pillars/ railing.
Wow- a whole lot of detail was covered up, wasn’t it? Not how the original fancy pillars were replaced with square, boring ones. Also notice how the 3rd upstairs window disappeared. And don’t get me started on the missing railing.
But last night… and major discovery:
The pillars are. still. there. !!!!!!!
And then another one:
The original clapboards are still there… and are in immaculate shape! (At least under the protection of the porch roof).
Well, needless we were inspired and started tearing into it:
Eeeek! The trim is there too! And, based on paint inside the windows, we can confirm that this is the original color scheme!
We also found this aqua molding piece- could this be an original color as well? It seems odd…
It still looks 
It still looks pretty rough, but I really do feel that with every piece of old siding we remove, we are bringing new life to this tired old house.
myqueenanne 
Don’t you just love finds like that? Whether those changes were made like that to shortcut costs and time, or they were trying to maintain a little historical value, who cares! So cool!
Removong that crappy siding makes it look so much better, and you’re very fortunate that the original trim was left. When they sides over the wood on our house, they hacked off a lot of trim, which I’ve had to rebuild again for the restoration. Luckily it is all straightforward shapes, and I rather enjoy working on the table saw and router table anyway.
I realise I’m a year late, but i’d guess that teal mightve been the original porch ceiling colour.