Our house's gutters were removed when the previous owners replaced the roof and painted the house. Over the years this had caused some premature paint failure from the excess moisture. The uncovered front porch is one such area. The water would pour down and splash up on the exterior siding.
FIXING THE PROBLEM
There was no sense in repainting this area until we fixed the underlying cause. Celia and I erected the scaffolding on one of the first hot days of the season and installed a section of gutter and downspout.
BEFORE PHOTOS (Expand to see full detail)
As you can see the paint was literally flaking away and the window sill has some mildew growth.
SCRAPING AWAY THE LOOSE PAINT
The paint scraped off quite easily. I used my Bahco 625. This is just an amazing tool for dry-scraping. Then, following up with my random orbit sander to smooth the paint lines.
NOTHING IS EVER EASY - ROT FOUND
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| Rotted window sill and apron trim board |
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| Close up of the rotten area. We removed the really rotten wood and then applied Minwax Wood Hardner to firm up the questionable stuff. |
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| The sill practically fell apart |
Only half the sill was rotted so I decided to carefully cut away the bad section
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| The clapboards are in perfect shape even after 120 years! |
The sill board had to be milled from a 4x4 of Douglas Fir. It was the only wood at the big box store that was thick enough. Not ideal for rot-resistance but it will have to do... The apron trim is a piece of 1x6 cedar ripped to the proper width. Everything was back-primed, filled with wood epoxy, and painted.
FINISHED PRODUCT
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