Columbia Neighborhood Siding | Bellingham, WA

Columbia is old Bellingham at its best — Victorian and craftsman-era homes on tree-lined blocks radiating out from Elizabeth Park, many of them standing since the days when this was the boomtown of Whatcom. Houses that old carry their history on their walls, quite literally: original cedar clapboard and shingle siding, ornate corner boards and water tables, and in more than a few cases, a regrettable layer of mid-century asbestos shingle or 1980s vinyl slapped over the top. Alpine Exteriors works on all of it — restoring, uncovering, and when necessary replacing the siding on Columbia's historic homes.

What Is Under There Matters

Some of our favorite Columbia projects begin with a homeowner asking what is beneath a dated overlay. Often the answer is original bevel siding that can be repaired and refinished; sometimes it is a wall that overlay installers damaged with a thousand nail holes and trapped moisture. We open a discreet test area first, so you know what you are working with before committing to a direction. From there, the paths are:

• Restoration — selective board replacement, epoxy consolidation of repairable trim, back-priming, and refinishing
• In-kind replacement — new cedar milled to match the original profiles and reveals
• Fiber cement conversion — matching shadow lines with a material that ends the repaint cycle
• Trim reconstruction — rebuilding the crowns, casings, and skirt boards that give these facades their character

Because nearly every house here predates 1978, our crews work lead-safe under EPA RRP practices as a matter of course — containment, HEPA cleanup, and proper disposal on every tear-off.

Weather Off the Bay, A Century On

Columbia's elevated blocks catch the wind coming off Bellingham Bay, and a hundred-plus winters of wind-driven rain have found every weakness these walls possess. The original builders worked without housewrap or modern flashing, relying on old-growth wood and generous overhangs. Where that system has finally lost ground — soft sills, punky corner boards, rot tracking down from a long-failed gutter — we repair the structure, install a modern weather barrier and flashing package beneath the new cladding, and return the wall to its original appearance with another century of protection built in.

The Right Contractor for an Old House

Alpine Exteriors has worked on northwest Washington homes for 25 years, and Bellingham's historic neighborhoods are where we have done much of our most careful work among more than 2,000 completed projects. Old houses reward patience and punish shortcuts; our carpenters know the difference between a wall that needs saving and one that needs replacing, and we will tell you which you have even when it is the cheaper answer.

Our 25-year workmanship warranty applies to every Columbia project, restoration and replacement alike. If your paint is failing on the weather side again, your shingle gables are curling, or you want to know what fifty years of overlay has been hiding, have us out for a free on-site estimate — a careful assessment, honest options, and written pricing for each path forward.