What you see here is what the door overhang looked like AFTER we had it painted last October. While it looks pretty nice here, in truth, they painted and used a TON of caulk over some very rotted work. This is lame, and makes us even more annoyed with the painters we hired. At the very top, the nicely cut part that looks like moulding is actually a wooden gutter; you can even see a tiny tube on each side (back near the wall of the house) that was supposed to drain the water.
Sadly, all the nice trim (gutter) had to come off entirely. The guys said they had no idea how they could have made these wooden gutters back then -- all with handtools no less. Here's one of the wooden gutters after they pulled it off the house:
Wooden gutters look really great (when they're not rotten), but without proper care, they rot out completely.
After removing the gutters, they replaced the rotten fascia, put up a roof cover, and then added copper trim. Here it is now:
It looks pretty nice, and the copper trim matches what's around the flat roof and the ridge top on the slate roof. It still needs some paint a few touch-ups to make it look just right. We're sad that it doesn't have the nice trim, but the copper does look pretty good. There's also a rain diverter on top so that the water goes over the sides, not right in front of the door.
Here's the work-in-progress on the side of the house. There was once a wooden gutter here, and you can see that they've put on a new 8'X2' nailer board.
At the point where the flat roof meets the rest of the house, you can see this nifty little hole: exactly the sort of hole that would allow certain flying varmints easy access to the main part of the house while they came in from the protective cover of the rotten wooden gutter:
And here's the repair, as well as a nice shot of the copper!
Here's the work in progress on the front part of the flat roof, where it appears over the kitchen door. This is actually the one place where the wooden gutter was salvagable.
And here you can see it with the copper on, as well as a small fix to the wooden gutter -- the addition of a downspout. It turns out that the house and/or gutter has settled, and this end of the gutter is actually lower than the downspout a the other end, so water was just sitting here (hence, the rotting).
We also found out that on the back of the house, there were once two windows of the same size, whereas now we have one window (into the bathroom) that is smaller. I had wondered if there was a window there at all, so now we know.
Here's the look of the new shingles. They're not quite finished, but very close. They have been pre-primed, and we're going to paint them ourselves since this area is accessible. You can also see the copper trim around the window.
And check out the chimney flashing upgrade! It looks awesome!
And here's the damaged wooden gutter before:
And after the addition of a downspout so it will actually drain:
The guys will be back tomorrow for a few small tasks and cleanup; we're nearly done!
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