We’ve written about the pebble-dash stucco before. Experts have said that it might not just be in the sleeping porch, but also outside, under the cedar shake. We guessed that the material might not have held up well in Wisconsin winters, and needed to be removed and replaced mid-life.

Then, a strange twist: the recently shared image of the home in 1933 told us that the house was covered with cedar shingles before 1933, a scant 16 years after it was built. Might it have always been sided? No – it’s in the porch. Did the stucco fail that fast? It’s still fresh in the porch too. Well, relatively fresh. It’s 100.

Or, did the Kibbies not like the pebble-dash and cover it for aesthetic reasons only, thereby protecting it for 90 years?

The ongoing bathroom remodel offered an opportunity to learn more. While drilling from inside-out for a required ventilation fan, we ran into concrete. Then, this weekend, we uncovered a small section of an outside wall and found the original pebble dash, in seemingly decent shape (it’s a mightly small sample.)

Here is said sample, along with the shake that covered it in the first and last colors.

So what next for the exterior? This architectural archeological dig has just begun.