Before & After: Historic Rowhouse Ditches Sad Siding
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(Image credit: Abigail)
Abigail’s fixer-upper stood out—and not in a good way. Sometime during its 100-year history, someone had slapped putty-hued vinyl siding on the front, which would be less jarring if it wasn’t one of many attached brick rowhouses! See how she and her husband restored the curb appeal:
(Image credit: Abigail)
From Abigail:
When we bought our hundred-year-old fixer-upper in downtown Frederick, Maryland, the first thing we planned to revitalize was its exterior. Situated in the middle of a row of brick homes, our house had been the recipient of some misguided renovations. One of these renovations was wrapping its exterior in vinyl siding the color of old putty. The poor house stuck out, a total eyesore. In fact, the day we moved in, all of our new neighbors stopped by and begged that we remove the siding as soon as possible.
About a month after moving in, my husband called me at work to let me know that our “house would look really different” when I got home. And wow, did it! Over the course of the morning, he had climbed up a forty-foot ladder and had removed most of the dreaded putty-hued siding. Underneath, we found brick painted the color of mint-chocolate chip ice cream. Several hours and much elbow grease later, we had removed the siding and cleaned/repaired the brick. To our surprise, our neighbors again stopped by and actually thanked us for removing the siding. I think they were happier about it than we were.
One of my favorite things about living in downtown Frederick is all of the cute painted-brick homes. Once we removed the siding, we couldn’t wait to pick out the exterior paint color for our own house. We went with Behr’s Marquee Exterior paint in a light dove grey with black for the details. In addition to redoing our home’s siding, we painted the front door fire-engine red, added a custom stained glass transom window (crafted at Terraza Stained Glass in Baltimore), repainted the alleyway door, replaced the exterior light and mailbox, and added a little stone flowerbed. It was a huge project— but so worth it in the end. No longer an eyesore, our little house is now cute and welcoming—and we did it all ourselves!
For more of Abigail’s projects, check out Patina & Purl.
Thank you Abigail!