Aluminum stripped, shingles repaired and painted, window reglazed and painted.`
Mouse over the image for a view of how it looked before.

We pulled down the aluminum siding exposing the grey shingles underneath. Many had holes from the time when insulation was blown into the wall from the outside. These were carefully removed and replaced. The worst was when the drilled holes miraculously hit upon a corner and took out 3 shingles at once. The windows also required quite a bit of attention, not only in replacing cracked and missing glazing but also in replacing the drip edges that were chiseled away in order to let the aluminum lay flush. The best part of this work was that we remained mostly under cover from the sun. Of course the top part of the porch was only a small part of the work that was needed. Its shingle sheathing had been battered and scattered by the sun, the wind, the rain and the snow for 70 years before it was covered by aluminum. The corners no longer resembled anything the craftsmen had intended and shingles fell to the ground after merely looking at them. Instead of replacing one shingle at a time or one small section at a time I opted to instead remove all the West facing shakes on the right hand side. It was no small undertaking. Even though I had removed some shakes before taking the 'before' picture, you can see much of the corner was already completely open to the elements. I took it back to the framing exposing a few years of bug cocoons and squirrel hiding spots.    This was only a couple of minutes after I decided to just 'go for it'.    The porch was a fire hazard for a month. Those shingles discarded underneath are like matches. This side of the porch just needed a few shingles replaced. I think it actually took the same amount of time that the right side took but this way used up fewer shingles and nails. Oh, and that's how a corner is supposed to look.