What are we thinking?

We first need to figure out whether reusing this cedar siding is a wise decision. We have about 1500 linear feet of siding on the house. Our conservative estimate is that we'll salvage 75% of the siding; the rest of it will either break or no longer fit when reversed.  That means that we can expect to end up with 1100+ feet of reusable siding.

Next, what will it cost to get the siding ready to go back up on the house?  A local deconstruction company gave a bid of $1600 to remove all the siding.  The back side of the cedar is unpainted and rough (see below). In order to get the boards ready for residing, we need to (a) cut the painted edge off each board and (b) get a smooth surface on the unpainted side.  The smooth surface could be achieved either by sanding, as in the picture below, or by running the boards through a planer.  The latter option requires building a jig to run the beveled boards through the planer.  A local millwork shop thought they might be able to get the job done for about $1000, but they'd never done anything like it, so it was going to be an experiment.  Sanding would probably cost a similar amount.

Top: taken directly from the house.  Bottom: sanded to 120 grit.

Rounding up, then, we should expect to spend roughly $3000 to end up with 400 feet less of siding than we started with. That's much less than the cost of buying new clear cedar siding, but our siding will have nail holes and staining; it won't look like new siding. In some ways, that's a good thing. As Coop15 points out on their blog, modern cedar siding has fewer than 10 growth rings per inch, making it weaker and less rot resistant than the wood that was used 60 years ago.  You can see our siding's dense growth rings in the picture below.

Closeup of siding removed from house showing growth rings.

There are also subjective considerations. Over the past 18 months, we've grown quite attached to our siding, and we feel somewhat responsible for the cosmetic damage that was inflicted on it. It's done its job for more than 60 years, and it doesn't seem right to send it to a landfill when it clearly still has so much to give.