What's under that vinyl?

Under the vinyl siding is the old wide wooden siding (probably covered in lead paint).

The old siding came together at nice mitered corners.

A good view of the old siding.  It turns out that the original 1930 siding was wide boards on the bottom, shingles on the second story, and some band in the middle separating the two, which must have been torn off when the vinyl job was done.

The old boards under the soffits were pretty strange looking.  Luckily there's enough structure up there to attach the new material we planned to put up.

This is all the wall insulation we had.  About a half inch of styrofoam, nailed under the vinyl, with all kinds of gaps in it.  No wonder our heating bills are so high.

New insulation is being blown into our wall cavities as we speak.

Already the rooms are less echoey and the traffic noise from Main St. is greatly reduced.