OH! OH!! OH!!!

This is just so exciting! Actual siding on my house! I LOVE IT!

This being the 4th spring in the siding project, it is about time. It is impressive. I go outside several times a day just to be able to look at the front of the house. I drove by it twice today and even walked across the street to talk to the neighbor so I could look at it from over there. OK, a little OCD maybe but I am very pleased to have this step underway.


An electrician came today to look at the meter and some wiring so he will do some work next week. Another man came to check the furnace and cut the old central air unit off the house. The CA hasn't worked for the past 3 summers anyway so now they don't have to side around the connections. When the siding is done, he will put in a new furnace and central air, much more efficient, since the old ones are 36 years old.

I will start installing the porch posts tomorrow I hope. It may be raining but unless the wind is blowing, I should be able to go ahead with this. I only have two of the decorative brackets cut so will be doing more scroll saw work. I have to do some research on this trim as I'm not sure if every post should have them or only the corner posts.

FINALLY.........

WORKERS HAVE ARRIVED!




Only a couple days late, which isn't too bad given that around here it seems to be very hard to get contractors to appear. They brought in the trailers today and marked their territory. (Guy thing?) Then they set up a neat tripod with a spinning lasar on the top which had to do with determining level. I WANT ONE! They didn't need to look for bubbles, a little beep tone increased in speed as level was neared and became a steady tone when they had it. No more twisting 6 ways to see that stupid bubble.


When that was done, they started doing the corners of the house. The corners of the house are wrapped with 1 x 4s made of cement composite material. They will start at 7 AM tomorrow so I have to be up early to get the dogs out and back in before they arrive. There is nothing like having a house full of little terriers and having work crews at the house.

Triki has been standing in my flowerpots in the south window because she can see the men walking around the yard. Plants that I have babied through the winter, barely kept alive, now the dogs are stomping on them while barking at the scary intruders in their yard. Hopefully they will adjust quickly.

OMG! Unbelievable!

Someone finally called me about doing the siding on my house. It has only been since last August that I made calls to find someone and at least a couple said they could do it but no one ever showed up. Just when I was starting to prepare for spring, figuring I would start putting up the siding as soon as the weather leveled out, a guy calls to say he wanted to look at the back part of the house. He came over the next evening and looked then came back the next to give me an estimate, which I considered very reasonable.

I am on their schedule for next week so will be taking most of the week off. The dogs have to be managed throughout the construction. The gates will be opened by people who don't know how fast a little Rat Terrier can be so no one will be able to go out of the house unless I am with them. I am pretty excited about getting this done, especially this early in the season so I will have time to do the painting during the summer then I can start some of the landscaping.

Tomorrow will be dedicated to clearing the rest of the stuff off the front porch. This includes the stacks of trim wood and porch ceiling boards. I need everything clean for the siders so they don't have to work around lumber, porch chairs and windchimes. After spending the winter in plastic wrap, I'm ready for some solid siding that I can slap some paint on. Oh no! Now I will have to choose a color for the house. Although I think I have it worked out, you would be amazed at how many shades of pale yellow-tan-cream there are. At least I gave up on red and blue.

Vacation??

Yes, I took a vacation. I took this entire week off because I have excess hours that need to be used. Since I have no specific plans, the supervisor suggested this week because no one else was wanting time off. Pretty typically, the weather conspired against me to make it impossible to get any work done on the outside of the house. The last 5 days have been overcast, foggy, drizzly, snowy, anything but warm and sunny.

I have continued to work on inside projects during the first part of this week. A week ago I picked up a load of salvage trim from a neighboring county. It included a number of pieces of ribbed, 5 inch wide yellow pine, some smooth 5 inch pieces, several window caps and "rosettes" for the top corners of windows. I considered this a pretty good find, free for the taking.

I used part of this wood to trim out the library window. The cap was just beautiful, with some sanding and a wire brush on the decorative molding then some poly stain to seal and it looked good. I have yet to seal the side trim and sill but will add a board below the sill first, as is the style with the old wide trims. I'm hoping it will all take the stain fairly evenly as the color on the top is very pleasing and I'd like to avoid painting this trim. The wood grain is very nice if left exposed.


Someone asked me the other day what I would do when I got done with the house. I assured them this would not be a problem as I have enough projects to last until I die. So, I guess as long as I am able to lift a hammer, I will be modifying my house. I suppose I could hire someone to finish up the renovation but then in my old age, all I would have to do is lay around watching TV and eating bonbons. NOT a good idea!

Got-r done!

The house now has a plywood shell(well, mostly) and is wrapped in plastic. Just in time, 8-10 inches of snow arrived yesterday and having a plastic coating should discourage that blowing in between the boards. I even managed to finish it without any additional injuries or disasters.

The new door is yet to be installed but that will probably have to wait until I can count on the temperature not dropping below zero, mid- job. Nothing like a 5 foot wide hole in the wall when it starts snowing. The new door, which is not actually new, still needs a little work before installation. It is a recycled door and needed some cosmetic work when I bought it.

I removed the moulding that held the glass in place and scraped away all the old glazing compound. I have reglazed and replaced the moulding on most of it but still a little to do then it all needs a good painting. I also need to divise a system to protect it from little dog paws that like to pat, pat all over the door when they are sent out to play. I haven't figured out how I'm going to do that yet. Perhaps utilizing the screen door off the old patio door?

Well, at least there are hints that spring will be here soon, so I may be able to make faster progress before long. Today there was no chance for working outside. The snow is settling but there is still a good 6" over the yard, except where I shoveled out "potty" areas for the dogs. They just refuse to wade out in that snow to take care of their business. Of course their bellies were dragging in the snow so I guess I can't blame them.

The House Fights Back!

Weather in Kansas, being what it is, did the unexpected again today and turned out a 53 degree day. Just 3 days ago windchill temperature was around -35. Tomorrow is expected to be cold again although only around freezing. Two weeks in a row now, Saturday has turned out to be very pleasant, which has allowed me some time to work outside on the house. Today, my hope was to finish the plywood sheathing on the back of the house. I am working on the gable presently and was able to complete half of it last week, even with the unfortunate fall of the electric meter. Turned into an 8 hour day out there, interrupted only by a water break and by coming in to lie on the floor and scream after dropping a 25 pound sheet of plywood, on edge, onto my face. Now that HURT! After the fact, I actually considered myself quite lucky. The 3/4" board came down on my upturned face and hit just below my nose on that inch of flesh above my lip. Had it been slightly higher, it would have broken my nose and possibly my glasses. Had it hit slightly lower, I would probably have lost teeth. As it is, I have only an abrasion across the space between my nose and upper lip and considerable swelling. I was not knocked out but I now understand the term "punch drunk" as I had a few minutes where I felt pretty out of it. This is the reason for the lying on the floor. I thought it preferable to falling to the floor. As for the screaming, which included some profanity, I heard a while back that cursing can actually help with pain. At that point I was willing to try it. I'm feeling rather beat up tonight, I think I could safely say I have a headache. While watching TV I could feel my entire head pulsing. I'm thinking I might haul out that leftover pain med from my surgery and see if it improves my night. I don't use pain killers stronger than Tylenol very often and I don't think I've ever finished off the stuff doctors have given me after surgery. In this case, however, I think I will make an exception.

Renovation reality......nightmares!

OK, my project has officially become a reality show episode. Just when I thought things were coming along reasonably well, despite the fact I was working outside under halogen lights until 9 PM the last 2 nights. Friday night was great but Saturday was getting pretty cold by then but I had open holes in my attic gable which had to be closed in before bad weather arrives.


Saturday, having turned out nicer than expected, looked like a good time to get a bit more plywood on the house. Standing near the top of the 16 foot ladder, ripping down fiberboard was fine, then I decided to remove the last piece of masonite siding, at the top of the gable. I sliced through the plank as it had a large screw eye in it which the electric wire from the pole attached to.

Unfortunatly, a small miscalculation occurred about this time. The screw eye, which I thought had been screwed into the 2x4 running up the wall behind the electric box, was actually only screwed into fiberboard. When the last piece of siding was cut, the electric meter and the 10 foot steel pipe running from it to the roofline, had no support at all and the next thing I knew, the electric wires were on the ground and the meter was hanging from side of the house.

Nice, eh? Ever wonder what you should do when your electric meter falls off your house? Not really something I spent a lot of time contemplating up to this point. Forced to think about it, the first thing that came to mind was "Is it safe to touch it?" followed by wondering if I would end up with a pile of crispy critters if the little dogs ran into it. I decided first priority was to herd the dogs into the house and lock them in. Then I debated what to do next while continuing to pull sheathing off the house. I thought about calling for someone to come cut the power off but had visions of spending the rest of the weekend in a dark, cold house. I thought about just leaving it laying in the yard until Monday when utility workers would be on duty. I was so flummoxed! What to do?


Fortunately, about that time a neighbor drove up and having been a friend of my son during childhood, he commented on how much fun it looked like I was having. His brother works for the city so he called to see if it was safe to leave the meter down over the weekend. The brother didn't think this would be safe so he called a crew who showed up shortly and cut the meter loose from the pole. They then rehung the meter on the house and connected the wires back up so I didn't have to spend Sunday in the dark. I didn't get the plywood all up but that will have to wait for another weekend.