Mystery of the Reclusive Rafter Tails

Our American Foursquare house the day we purchased

In my second blog post, The American Foursquare, I mentioned that Foursquare homes usually have a colonial or craftsman influence. I've even seen some with Spanish colonial elements. Foursquares vary a great deal even in one neighborhood! I am hoping do do a future post about Foursquares in Ghent. But, I digress ...

Back to the mystery at hand!  I said that our house has some Craftsman elements like exposed rafter tails on the dormers.  In the photos above, if you look at the dormer windows on the third floor you can barely see the ends of the rafter tails under the roof eaves. They look like little white decorative blocks from the front.

Well, when we were planning the renovations of our house, we discussed the possibility of there being exposed rafter tails hiding under the vinyl that is covering the soffitt (underneath portion) of the main roof. You can see (above) on the right side that the roof overhangs quite a bit. We were sooooo hoping that we would uncover and restore a treasure under there!

 

And there they are! When the crew began removing the siding we could see that, indeed, there are exposed rafter tails on our house. At least, they exist in the back of the house?

 

 

Then we got a peek at the side overhang and, yes! Mystery solved in the affirmative! Turns out they are in pretty good condition. I think we have to replace one or two on the whole 91 year old house! But, what you might be able to see below is roofing nails that come all the way through the soffit boards - UG-LEE! After some considerable back and forth between owners, contractor and painters here is what we decided.

 

 

 

The nail tips would be snipped off as best they could be. Then the remaining wood would be scraped and sanded, primed and painted, the best it could be. Everyone promised it would look amazing!

 

 And it does! So far, anyway.  This is the right side after scraping, painting, priming and two coats of paint - finished! Now, imagine THAT all the way around against blue-gray siding and pristine white trim. Perfection ... keep viewing Mission: Foursquare to see!