Front gable uncovered & newly restored window

A week or so ago, I uncovered the front gable.

Nothing makes one appreciate the after photo, like a before photo, also note the unrestored gable window and unattractive plastic shutters which are gone forever now. Black was the original color and I think it makes a nice contrast with the white window frame. More on the window restoration in an upcoming post!

Some closeups and details:

The screen attachment hardware

Found the screen up in the attic, I reattached it for a photo, unfortunate it has a big hole in the lower section, which can be repaired.

The latch that attaches the screen to the bottom of the window sill.

That storm window off to the left goes to another window.

The condition and appearance of the fishscales just after being uncovered. I know I need to glue back that flap that was split by the flashing.

A little background history/info. From paint chips, I have determined that the gables were originally dark green, then grey, then finally white. For some reason, the gray layer from pre-1920 still exists untouched here and wasn't painted white in 1923, which makes me think they added some extra ornamentation to the crown molding to make it appear even bigger, which was in place pre 1920 until 1983 when it was hacked off. Sadly, I never found any historical photos of my house, yet.

The number "18" rudely defacing the top of the window moulding. Any guesses if it has a significance?

Various scribbles and writing, similar writings were found on the west gable.

What is MAX BMU? Correction: Thanks Matt Swabb for pointing out to me it actually says Max B. Mullins (a scrapyard owner nearby, and self titled business) and not MAX BMU 11 ins (inches)

And the date, 2/13/83 which puts this North gable siding job 5 days after the west gable.

Gable without the window sashes.

Beadboard eaves detail, the rest of the aluminum will be removed from the fascia board which has beautiful bead and cove moulding on it.

Doorbell removal

We had non functional wireless doorbells installed by the PO, which I decided to remove because everyone who came to the door assumed they worked and woudln't knock... or use the mechanical doorbells so we were always never home! I removed them to find some old wires behind for the previous, wired door bell. To my shock and horror the wires were still live, I had accidentally crossed them and they sparked. I tried to pull them out, but they went very deep, so I cut off a sample seen in the 2nd image.

I went around to the side door and removed its doorbell too, found newer wires than the candy cane striped ones found on the front, 

 

I found the hookup where all the doorbell wires were connected to, and shut off the power and disconnected them.

 Look at that mess, how all the wires were spliced together! Who lives live wires buried in the wall connected to nothing and/or doorbells that don't function!??!

So I pulled out the wires to the front doorbell from the basement, filled it with wood putty and sanded it, and eventually to paint over it.

I wasn't able to pull the wiring out from the second doorbell, so I cut it back as far as I could and buried the dead, disconnected wires, the cracked clapboard to the right, I believe is what they hid and ran the wires behind because I couldn't pull those out from either end despite being disconnected.

Doorbell holes were filled better than that, I just didn't have a more recent pic.

Parlor door instructions! (pocket door)

I found this crawling around in hard to reach places. Pretty cool. Plus some sort of household goods order tag addressed to the Lady of the home back in 1900.

Original Screen doors

Down in the basement I found the original screen doors, actually I had found them a few years ago but never got around to taking them off the hanging rack they were placed on, along with a pair of wood shutters and a window that was never used.

The front door's screen door

Side door, we have 4 doors to the outside, but only 2 screen doors were found, presumably the other side door had the same style. As for the backdoor, unknown.  What follows are various closeups of various sections and parts of the doors. Unfortunately they are both in damaged condition, but luckily enough of the pattern still exists to establish a symmetrical image of what they should look like.