Winter Wonderland

Mother Nature has made an early visit to our area this year. On the 1st of December, we received about 8 inches of snow and have received about 2 more inches since then. This is actually early for us; the past couple of years we have made it through Christmas with little more than a dusting with most of the snow coming in January and February. Thought I would show you have the place looks reflected in the white snow. As Tom say, "now the yellow is reallllllly bright!". Here is another view:

I like the look of it, fresh and clean instead of the old peeling and stained paint. I still come around the corner from town and look at the house and think "Oh, that's right, the house is yellow now and doesn't it look great!". Here is the night time view with the lights on; not the best picutre but still gives the effect.

Merry Christmas to everyone!! We look forward to celebrating with all the family on the 29th.

Pictures are coming...

With the snow on the ground and the Christmas lights up, the house is looking really sharp. I have not had a chance to get pictures yet but will this weekend. I will post them as soon as I can.

Till then....

Sidewalks are finished

The sidewalks are poured and dried and we spent the (back-breaking) afternoon hauling top soil around the edges and the pit that was left when we removed the old walkway. As you can see, we decided not the replace the walk that connects the side door to the front. It was an unsed walkway that was difficult to keep clear in the winter. Next spring/summer we will be finishing off the landscaping around 3 sides of the house (the back was done when we completed the porch). We may put a stone path through the old walkway area but not exactly sure yet.

Now that we are very close to finishing (we are still missing the front door), I thought you might like to see some before and after pictures.

Front before:

Front After (different angle):

Back Before:

Back After:

North Side Before:

North Side After:

South Side Before:

South Side After:

The siding is finished

As you can see, the front steps finally arrived and the last of the siding was installed. I am happy with the results though it seems odd to have yellow on the front of the house after looking at the insulation for so long. In the next picutre, you can see where the old sidewalk has been dug up.

As a last minute addition, we are re-laying the front walk from the sidewalk and removing the continuation around to the back door. We are planning on landscaping the front yard next summer and this will make the house and walks more balanced. On the interior, all the windows have been stained and varnished, and the inside of the porch has received a fresh coat of paint. We will be turning that into more of a sunroom than a storage room. We are not quite finished with the painting yet but should be soon. I will get some shots when we are done. Till then.....

It's been a long time...

Sorry I have not posted in quite a while; the days just seem to be slipping by without any time to get on the computer and do anything.


A lot has been done; the roof is on (actually it has been done for a week) and all the storm doors are installed. Here are some shots:

We are very pleased with how the roof turned out. It makes a nice clean line on the house. A house of this age it looks like it belongs. Plus being a metal roof with a 30-40 year guarantee, it will be the last roof we will have to put on this house. We are currently still waiting for the front stoop to arrive, it is held up by the ordering of the railings. They had to come from somewhere in Indiana. Last time we called about it, the response was "Don't call us, we will call you when it arrives." When that finally arrives, the last of the siding will be put on the front of the house. This is what the front looks like right now:

A little unfinished compared to the rest of the house. Tom has spent a good portion of this week working on the inside of the porch. He is sanding and repainting the whole thing so it will be more like a three season room. I am looking forward to using it when it is completed. I will post pictures of that when completed. That's all for now. I will post more when we have some more progress......

Roof work has started

A couple of pictures to show where we are at this weekend. The top picture is the final completion of the siding on the back of the house. All that is left of the siding is the front and we are still awaiting the arrival of the door before that can go on. We did receive a door last week but it was completely wrong so it was sent back. Not sure when the new one will arrive. The second picture shows our new roof, or at least the part that is done. The south side is also done but with the trees, it is hard to get a picture. The roofers will be back next week to finish up and hang the gutters. Our carpenter is also working inside finishing up the trim around the windows. I spent last weekend staining the sashes and trims and still have more to go. Hopefully I will get to that tomorrow. I'll keep you posted.....

And now for something completely different....

I did finally get a blog posted on the house (see next blog) but here is the reason we have been so busy: our oldest bird has flown the coop.
We packed and hauled him off to college on Thursday. He had a little of the startled deer look when we left. The adjustment from a town of 300 to a campus of 10,000 will be quite the adjustment. I am confident he will do well and make many friends. His roommate was elusive that day but we had met him prior to then so they know they will get along. He has not called home yet; hope that is a good sign. We do miss him around here though. I will send his contact information along to family in a seperate email.

We moving along again...sort of

Sorry I have not blogged in a while, lots going on around here (see other blog).

We were back in action again for a short period of time but as you can see the back is not quite finished. The reason: they ran out of siding. It will be shipped here next week. Also, the back door is in but the wrong door was sent. At least the building supply store admitted they made a mistake and ordered the wrong door. The door should have been all clear without the grid on it. They will be sending someone out from the door company to either remove the grid or replace the door. It was just one more frustration in getting the doors in. We do like the door though and all the light it brings into the hallway. The final (front) door will be shipped also next week so maybe we will have all operational doors again. I can only dream....

We have come to a standstill...

What can be done on the exterior without the last two doors is done. The guys will be working on another job for the next couple of days while we wait. The last report is that the doors will be here "by the end of the month". Overall, I am very please with how it looks. Both of the larger sides are completely done so we have a good idea of the final concept. The roofers have been contacted that we are ready for them and hopefully they will show up soon since the new siding is making the roof look really bad!! So, let me know what you think. I will probably not post again until they start working again.

North side near completion

This is how the north side is looking after two days progress. The last window is still not in but it is here and should be installed tomorrow. They should be able to finish the north side after that. The front and back are still uncompleted due to missing doors. Plus all the interior trim had yet to be finished. So, even though it looks like we are close, there is still a lot to be done. I have not had much time to put into the staining yet either. One of these weekends I will dedicate to just getting that started. Keep watching, I'll keep you posted...

First door in

The first door went in today. We still do not have any of the other doors here but they wanted to start working on the siding on this side so they had to put the door in. It is hard to see in this picture but the door is dark green. It does have a half round window in it but the frame is currently painted green so you cannot tell. Even close up it is hard to see. I will probably paint the frame around the window white so it will pop out more. The door still has some trim finishing to do but at least we get the idea of how it will look. Nice to see some siding on this side of the house also. I'll keep you posted.....

Continuing with the siding

Just a couple of pictures to keep you updated on the progress. They finished the front peak early Friday morning and moved on to start the upper back. They will have to wait on the lower part until the door arrives. Not much else to say except how much we are tired of living in a construction zone every day. Someone once asked us if we were going to stay while this was going on and our first thought was "Why not, it won't be that bad". How wrong we were! Not that we would want to shell out an extra expense to live somewhere else but it sure would be nice to be able to keep the house clean and have a yard we can enjoy. I keep tellling myself, someday it will be done and I will get the house/yard clean again. Maybe not this summer but someday.
I'll keep you posted.....

More Pictures...

This is a few days worth of progress in the pictures. They will be finishing up the attic peak this morning and hopefully moving on to the only door we have, the basement. As you can see in the first picture, the south side of the house is completely done, but the north side still looks like this: If they work on the basement door, it will be the first progress on this side is quite a while. The lone window is still waiting to be replaced and getting that in will really help move things along. We are still playing the waiting game on the rest of the doors, the front steps and that window. Kind of frustating but what can you do. I will keep you posted....

Out of Town

Sorry, been out of town for a couple of days. I will post pictures soon!

An idea of how it will look

The south side of the house is completely done, even the soffit is up. Gives us a good idea of how it will look. I still like the color, Tom and Ben think it is a little bright. The one thing bad thing currently happening is that our land line is out of commission. Course we did not realize it until 6 PM Friday night, a little late for any repair. The construction guys had to fuss with the box to get the siding up and we think something got messed up then. So, for my family, if you need to get in touch with us, please either email or call our cell phones. I will not post either here; hope you have them if you need them. Have a good weekend, more next week.

Starting with the siding

Since we are still in a waiting pattern for the doors and the last window, the guys were able to start putting on some siding after finishing the front porch. I am loving the color, it will look very different that what we had. The yellow looks a little brighter in this picture than it really is; probably just the reflection of the sun. As you can see, the outside corners will be white like the window trim; that should break up the solid color a little. Hopefully, more will go on tomorrow or maybe the doors will arrive?? (wishful thinking!!) Stay tuned....

Moving along...

The first half of the porch windows are in. They spent yesterday finishing up the stabilizing of the porch and framing out of the windows. I am pleased with the windows, though a mistake was made with the ordering and the picture window is 6 foot instead of the 5 foot it should have been. They were able to accommodate the size and not have to reorder. I'm sure we will enjoy the nice view out the porch now. We are ordering preformed front steps that will be brought in a couple of weeks. They should be much nicer that what we had and will drain the proper direction.
We were able to have the dumpster removed today. We had filled it to the brim and were already into the "extra charge" period so it had to go. We will have very little garbage after this point even though we still have one old window and 3 old doors on the house. We are still awaiting the arrival of the doors. We have had so much rain since the screen doors were taken off that all the doors are swollen and hard to open and close so we are anxiously awaiting their arrival. Keep watching, I'll post more as things progress.....

Sidetracked

A little side tracked today. We discovered there was some rot where the front stoop met the house but when we pulled the siding off, it was a little more than we expected. The reason it was there was because the stoop was draining toward the house instead of away. The only solution was to remove the stoop and repair the porch walls. We had the local excavator come and haul it away. It will be re-poured sometime next week we hope. While we were all torn apart, we decided to shore up and insulate the porch floor. That is what the guys are doing here. They did not quite finish so the porch is covered for the weekend. Our goal is to turn the porch into more of a three season room, usable expect during extreme temperatures. We will not be running HVAC to it though since the HVAC man said it was very costly to go through the original foundation but the electrician will be here tomorrow to add more outlets out there. The windows are here but won't go in until the repair work is done. More next week...

Record Rains

Received notice yesterday that the porch windows would be delivered on Friday. Seemed like a perfect time since all the house windows were installed, minus the one that was not ordered. The game plan was to remove all the porch windows on Thursday so that on Friday when the windows came, the porch would be all ready to go. Sounds perfect right?? Well, what we did not plan on was the record rains we would have this afternoon and evening.

These pictures show a sequence of events. While the windows were being taken out, it was a beautiful day, very hot and humid but nice none the less. As the rain approached, the guys put up tarps to cover for the night. The last picture was taken after it had been raining (and hailing) for quite a while. It is hard to tell in the picture how wet the tarps are. Fortuately, even with all the rain, the porch was only damp and had minor dripping into it. I would have been very surprised if it stayed dry. The lastest report I heard was that we had 5 inches of rain!! I know it also hailed at least twice. When I get on the National Weather Service radar, it looks like more is coming. We will just keep out fingers crossed. I post again when the new porch windows are in.

All but one...

Did not get a chance to post yesterday, too much going on around here. Here are a few picutres showing the past two days. As you can see, just one external window to go. This one was missed in the initial order so we are in a waiting period until it comes. Meanwhile, they will replace the two internal windows we are having replaced; the picture window in the living room and the one in the spare (game) room. Both open into the front porch. We are still awaiting the arrival of the doors also, supposedly the first week in August. More tomorrow......

Around the next corner...

The two windows in our bedroom were done today and they met up with the lower windows and the first side. You can't see due to the tree in the picture but that only leaves one double window on this side. We are slowly but surely getting toward our goal. This has been a much slower process than I anticipated. I hope that once we get through the windows and doors (which may not arrive until the first week in August!), the siding will go on quickly. My next project will be staining the interior wood of the windows. Carl (the contractor) and Nancy (his wife) came by tonight to give me some pointers on how to do that. It will be a big job but I think I will enjoy doing it. Tom has taken most of the responsibility of this so far and I want to be part so this will be my part. I will start in the bedrooms since right now we have no window coverings and don't want to put the blinds back on until the wood is stained. We also have some cleanup to do around the yard this weekend, plus the kids want the see the new "Harry Potter" movie, shopping to do, laundry, etc...just a normal weekend. Hope you have a great one!!

One more room done...

Two new pictures to show the progress. Good thing Ben and I spent a large portion of the evening last night cleaning his room since they went straight there this morning. Not sure he even knows that he has two new windows since he has not been home most of the day. I am glad to see the progress they made today. Moving around the corner of the house and closing in on the side they started on. They have left the last 2 double windows for now, don't think they are looking forward to getting a heavy window up to the second floor. Pretty soon our whole house will be a lovey shade of blue...well, at least temporarily. At least no rain today and a dry forecast for the next week or so. YEAH!! More later....