Over the past week, we have been watching as our neighbors slowly but surely cover up half of the timber frame beams which face the alley running beside our house. It was a pretty cute house although they have done lots of modern improvement to it over the years (and the past few months as well) and the only thing which remained to show that this house was indeed quite old were these exposed beams.

This is what the house looked like until Monday when they brought in scaffolding and started to work.

As of yesterday evening, it looked like this…
Not an improvement by any means (IMHO) but they are at least keeping with small, slate-like shingles in form what they did years ago. And we think that there was actually a legitimate reason behind them doing this: A few months ago they had a contractor out here with a smoke machine and they were apparently trying to locate a hole(s) in and around the beams. I guess they found at least a few which brought on this new face for the house.

Stefan assures me it should look ok when they are finished. I’m just wishing they were further back in the alley so we didn’t have to see it all the time…but I guess it could have been worse. People do some crazy stuff to old houses, after all!