The Cottage the Neighbors Compliment

About This Project

This little Bellingham cottage wore its original cedar shake and lap, decades of patches showing through, with old green-trimmed windows that had long stopped earning their keep.

The owner wanted the cottage to stay a cottage: same scale, same sweetness, better bones. That meant fiber cement in place of the tired wood, fishscale gables like the ones the neighborhood grew up with, and a paint scheme that makes people slow down on the sidewalk.

Rebuilt from the Studs Out

The tear-off took everything — shake, lap, and every layer of old weatherproofing down to bare boards. What we found led to a mid-project decision the owner approved without hesitation: re-framing the belly-board line and re-sheeting to close the openings, so the new envelope could seal correctly and the siding could run flat and true across walls that had been wavy for generations.

Then the rebuild: 8¼-inch HardiePlank with a joint flashing behind every seam, HardieTrim at the windows, doors, and corners, and — the detail that makes this house — Allura half-round scalloped shingles in every gable, a special-order item worth the freight wait. Non-vented HardieSoffit went in overhead to keep the insects out, new roof fascia boards squared up the edges, and 5-inch aluminum gutters finished the water's path from ridge to ground.

Five Windows and Her Door

The window package was small and deliberate: five Milgard Trinsic V300 vinyl windows — the three tired ones across the back and two more the owner flagged by text — all ordered with cross-hatch grids to keep the cottage's traditional face. Each one went in over flex-wrapped sills with fresh flashing, sized to its opening.

The front door was her pick entirely — a custom craftsman-style door she chose herself, which our crew hung, flashed, shimmed, and fitted with its hardware. Against the yellow, it's the exclamation point on the whole face of the house.

The Finished Look

Butter yellow with white scallops and trim — a scheme with the confidence to be cheerful. Her review said it best: the house looks adorable, and the neighbors keep saying so. She also mentioned that her before-and-after photos live on the Siding Vault website. They do — they're on this page, a few scrolls up.