Originally, we planned to change the outside to a more conservative white with black trim, and I applied the first coat a year or so before this picture was taken in 2006.  Now, we are considering using a pale gray for the body of the house, with white trim and some small black highlights.  There has been some tidying up since the picture was taken, and we have nearly finished replacing the three pairs of windows at the front upstairs, including refurbishing the outside of the frames, which were in very poor condition.  This picture gives a better view of the south end of the wrap porch.  We have started on some interior cosmetic work on the porch while we address the structural work on the outside.  We spend a lot of time on the porch, so it was important to make it comfortable. 
To the right is another picture of the East side of the house taken the day after we got 18 inches of snow overnight.  It has been above the level of the window sill.  Generally, we get our first serious snow in late November or early December, and this continues into March.  At first, when we had the car, we would be snowed in until the drive was plowed, which could take more than a day after really heavy snow .  Now, the all wheel drives just go straight through the snow.  
To the right is a picture of the back of the house, which faces North.  The rear section contains the kitchen, mud room, laundry room and two pantries downstairs, with a back staircase leading to two bedrooms with an access corridor upstairs.  This was, originally, the servants quarters.  You can just see the north end of the wrap porch on the right hand side.  The oak tree on the left of the picture, which was reputed to be the oldest in Columbia county, had to be taken down.  Pictures on the Garden page. 
 
We are having to do a lot of infrastructural, preparatory work before embarking on the cosmetics.  Not least was having the entire roof replaced on both the house and the barn.  We are also reducing the height of the ground around the house to reduce the risk of any rot in the wood that is near the ground.  I am replacing all 42 windows; 26 done, 16 to go!  Then there are another 18 on the wrap porch.  I am able to complete most of the work from the inside, even the upstairs windows.  A number, like the one to the right of the front door and all four in the master bedroom, needed new frames to match the old, as the existing ones were rotten.  The bay in the dining room, shown in the picture to the left, had completely to be rebuilt due to rot.  This is chronicled in the section  on the Dining Room & Bay.  As I stated earlier, we have no intention of restoring the exterior of the house to how it looked when it was new, any more than we are doing this on the inside.  Overall, we want a simple yet elegant treatment that is easy to finish, and to maintain.  We started with a handicap, however, as the previous owner had painted the white vinyl siding in a bright yellow.  Painting vinyl siding is not the best idea anyway, but bright yellow; with electric blue trim? 
To the right you can see how badly deteriorated much of the exterior was when we bought the house.  The corbels were removed and renovated, along with the soffits, but some of the corbels were in such bad condition that a local carpenter made some new ones to match that you can see in the pictures below. 
In Winter, the water coming through the rotten portion of the soffit, see the picture to the right, created spectacular stalactites.  There were also some slightly less impressive ones on the porch. 
The renovated corbels.  We have started to paint them black with white detailing.  It is a very tedious job, but I like the way it looks.  We plan to have a contractor finish painting the outside, so this provides a pattern from which they can work. 
Select:

House Exterior

Our c. 1860 House -

Outside

On the left, the East side of the house, showing the restored Bay window, and the Barn at the back.  The Barn has its' own section.  We still had the crappy Oldsmobile SUV when this was taken; thankfully, it has been replaced.  All of the windows along this side of the house have been replaced with modern double glazed, double hung windows.  I have yet to replace the decorative cast iron above the bay. 
Deborah & William Hillyard
Deborah & William Hillyard
Deborah & William Hillyard
Deborah & William Hillyard
Deborah & William Hillyard