Fifteen Windows and the Walls Around Them

About This Project

The before photo tells you everything about why this project happened: a tall Bellingham side wall with its paint letting go in sheets, on hardboard siding that had given all the years it had. The owner didn't want to chase that wall with a paintbrush every few summers — and while the siding question was open, the windows and sliding doors came into the conversation too.

So the whole exterior became one consolidated project: tear-off, new envelope, new siding and trim, fifteen windows, two sliding doors, and rebuilt soffits — one crew, one schedule, one spring.

The Consolidated Build

Everything came off down to the sheathing, which was inspected wall by wall — remarkably, this house needed almost no rot repair, and what little it did need was handled at the per-sheet rate written into the quote, no surprises. Fresh housewrap went on, and then primed HardiePlank painted on site — a soft blue closest to Secure Blue (SW 6508) — with HardieTrim in Arctic White at every window, door, and corner, a board-and-batten gable up top for character, and a joint flashing behind every plank seam — with no caulk at the seams, per James Hardie's instructions.

With the walls open, all fifteen windows and both sliding doors were replaced with Milgard Tuscany V400 units — SunCoat Low-E glass, argon-filled, tempered where safety requires, with SmartTouch hardware on the sliders. Old units out, openings cleaned to bare framing, flex-wrapped sills, new units fastened and sealed, trim rebuilt around them. Doing them inside the re-side meant every flashing detail integrates with the housewrap — the way it never can when windows go in after the fact. The soffits were rebuilt too, re-framed where the old structure sagged, and a magnet sweeper combed the yard before the crew rolled out.

The Finished Look

Soft blue lap under white trim lines, the board-and-batten gable with its round vent, the river-rock accents at the garage — a house that reads freshly built rather than re-sided. And not one square foot of peeling paint anywhere on it.

The owner's review said it plainly: outstanding job, responsive to every question, professional, and they cleaned up after the project. It's below — from a review platform that later removed it, so we've preserved it exactly as he wrote it.