American Colonial Exterior Project – NARI WRA Gold Winner
This early/mid century American colonial home has undergone several expansion addition builds in its lifetime. The entire house was cladded with 6” cedar lap siding and wood trim to all around. For the homeowners, painting was becoming a losing proposition due to age of the wood and cost for upkeep. We suggested a variety of products that would be low maintenance and still keep the aesthetic integrity of the home, while providing better insulation and energy savings along the way.
We decided on a pre-finished engineered wood lap siding product from LP Building Products called SmartSiding for the new cladding and trim on the home. The beauty of this product is that it looks, feels and cuts just like wood, because it is! Under the siding we installed a half-inch closed cell foam insulation board and energy wrap. We installed matching side lights and two aluminum cladded windows, one steel Energy Star rated entry door with two matching sidelights and two aluminum storm doors. All the wood trim was wrapped in aluminum. We even replaced the decorative wood mouldings from the columns in the alcove with a low maintenance, pre-finished Fyopn molding of similar dimensions.
Since the current construction of the home was a hodgepodge of three different builds, one could tell where one build stopped and another started. Removing and replacing the siding gave the home an aesthetic continuity that any newly designed home would have.
The most challenging part of this American Colonial exterior project was keeping the aesthetic integrity of the house while using all low maintenance products to do so. It required hours of pre-planning, research and detailed field measurements to find. More specifically, were maintaining the arches and replicating the design of the garden window. Our installers took extra care replicating the existing dimensions, allowing for a perfect fit. This contributed greatly to the theme of this American Colonial exterior project, which was completely changing the exterior, but keeping its character.
After presenting the customer with the comprehensive estimate detailing what we could offer, the homeowners were pleasantly surprised to learn that our estimate was nearly $10,000 under their budget!
The attention to detail, the affordability, the low maintenance all result in a project JM Remodeling is very proud of. This American Colonial exterior project was awarded Gold at the 2013 Milwaukee NARI Wisconsin Remodeler Awards.