Retiring the Asbestos Siding
Before & After
About This Project
Plenty of mid-century homes around Bellingham still wear asbestos-cement siding, and this bungalow was one of them. The material itself isn't dangerous sitting on a wall — the danger is in disturbing it — which is why replacing it is a job with a strict order of operations, and why the paint-sample patches on the old walls stayed patches for years while the owner worked out what the exterior's future should be.
The answer was a full reset. A licensed asbestos-abatement contractor removed and disposed of the old siding under containment, installed new sheathing, and wrapped the house in Tyvek HomeWrap. Before a single plank went up, we inspected that weather barrier — flashing tape, laps, seams — because our siding is only as good as what's underneath it. Then the rebuild began.
Three Textures, One Blue
A small house can carry a big design. The main body is HardiePlank lap in Evening Blue with a 7-inch reveal. The gables switched to straight-edge HardieShingle in the same Evening Blue — a special-order profile that gives the peaks a shake-style texture without wood's upkeep. And around the base, Sierra 8 HardiePanel skirting grounds the house, separated from the lap by a clean band board and painted by our crew, color-matched to the siding. Framing it all: Cobble Stone HardieTrim, a warm stone-gray that reads softer than white against the deep blue.
The details got custom attention. The owner wanted 5/4x6 band boards, so that's what went on — including a rethought run beside the chimney, cut to a slimmer profile where the full width would have crowded the brick. Behind every light fixture sits a purpose-cut Hardie block, flashed with metal; behind every plank seam, a joint flashing. No caulk at the seams — James Hardie's instructions call for flashed joints that drain, and that's how we build them.
Finishing the Envelope
Mid-project, the owner added the last piece: every soffit replaced with vented Cedarmill HardieSoffit, with new blocking framed in where the old eaves needed it, painted in Sherwin-Williams SuperPaint in the body color. Vented soffits move air through the attic the way the original construction never quite did, and the crisp panels closed out the eaves to match the rest of the rebuilt exterior. One footnote from the schedule: the skirting was originally planned for painting in our shop, a workaround for the wet season — then the weather turned kind, and the crew painted it in place instead. Flexibility costs nothing when the plan is built for it.
The result is a bungalow that kept its cottage bones — the brick chimney, the picket fence, the garden pressing up against the walls — and shed the one material nobody wants to think about. It's wrapped, flashed, and finished in fiber cement from skirt to peak.
