Pretty Posts

Tradition is to use trim colors on turned porch posts on a Folk Victorian house. The problem is, there are no instructions on how to paint them. I couldn't find more than a couple pictures of painted posts, none close to the shape of mine.

How much is too much? Not enough? How do you know when you get it right? I guess it is just done to taste, or maybe you stop when you get tired of painting little colored stripes around the posts. It ended up taking almost 2 weeks to get the posts done, mostly because I would paint a section, take a picture, then paint another section, trying to figure out just how much color I wanted on them. Of course, after figuring it out, I had to do 4 more posts, just the same. The reward is, my porch is starting to look really good.

With the long weekend, maybe I will start putting the ceiling on the porch. It would change the look tremendously as the open rafters are unfinished. I would have left the rafters exposed and painted but whoever built the porch did a very unsightly job of attaching it to the house. Not something that can be repaired without tearing the porch roof clear off so putting a new ceiling up seems to be the best alternative.

Metamorphosis

The transformation is nearly complete! Four years ago, my little house had grown quite sad in appearance. In 1985, I moved into my cheap little house, bought at auction for only $17.5K . By 2008, the paint had faded and peeled, the masonite siding had swollen in places, warped in others. It was just ugly, the only good looking part was the roof, which I had replaced a few years earlier. I decided it was time to make some improvements. Initially, the plan was just for some painting and siding, it turned into a major makeover.
The outcome pleases me! I love how my house looks now that it has new paint, siding, windows and a door. It is definitely unique in the little town I live in. With the new turned posts and colorful gingerbread trim, the addition of the porch brackets will finish off the ornate look popular in the original folk Victorian style home.

There are many things yet to be done. My deck in back will have proper legs put under it as I didn't want it attached to the house again and it will have a new roof put on it. The porch ceiling needs to be installed and painted. It will be ther rust color from the trim, as will the front door. The soffitts will also be replaced as poor material was used on them previously. I would like to re-face the porch steps as well. Of course, the rest of the house needs painted, only the front is done so far. I'm really proud of how far I've come and look forward to finishing the rest of the details.

Happy Mother's Day to myself!

Yes, I LOVE these new porch posts. How much better gift could I get for Mother's Day than having my siding and porch posts done? I don't know if this house really had a porch before it was added to back in 1975. That was before I lived in Norton so I don't know what it was like. I did find a picture of a house that was very similar to mine when they were built. It was one of the pictures I found when I started researching my house.



I discovered my house is "Folk Victorian" style, even though it was built a couple decades after that style was popular. FV let the middle class have some of the fancy details in their homes that wealthier people enjoyed on their Victorian and Queen Anne style homes.


The little house with purple and blue trim has a pair of doors on the small wooden porch. The one to the side as one walks onto the porch, is in the same location as the tall, thin window in my library. While working on that window, I discovered there had originally been a door there.


Overall, I am quite pleased with how the house is coming along. The addition of a 4th post across the front of the porch gave a more balanced look and the turned posts lend that extra
touch of vintage to the look.


Tomorrow is dedicated to doing some painting. I will be going over all the gold trim with better quality paint and painting the window and door trim with the same gold color. Guess I will be up the ladder again this summer. No worry, it is all downhill from here as far as my workload goes.

COLOR!! Color! color?

Much of the siding is on the house already. A couple more days and it should be done. The contractor will then install my patio door in back and possibly the porch posts. Although I was originally planning to do all these tasks, the idea of getting this part of it done is very appealing. I will still have all the painting to do and cutting the rest of the porch brackets, all the landscaping and years of inside projects so it isn't like I HAVE to do all of it.

It has been rewarding to do as much as I have on my own. I cherish my independence and my ability to do almost anything I set my mind to. When I hire someone to do something, I want it to be because I CHOOSE not to do it myself, not because I am unable to do it. Of course there are things I choose not to do because I don't want to try them. I have no urge to try snake charming, skydiving or bull riding or things that might seriously damage me.

As I have grown older, I recognized my own unwillingness to suffer pain when not necessary. Granted, climbing up and down ladders all day, lifting boards over my head, dropping boards on my face and hammers on my toes causes pain but that is somewhat necessary. Well, maybe not the dropping stuff on me part.

Philosophical stuff aside, now I really get to pick a color for my house. I have brought home dozens of paint cards over the past 3 years. Getting the right colors for the gables took at least 5 complete color schemes before settling on what I liked best. Since then I have picked many color swatches for siding. I've photo-shopped multiple colors onto pictures of my house, hoping to figure out what I wanted. I did eliminate the idea of the rust/red color and blue just didn't appeal to me for my house. This left me with variations on the yellow/gold tones. It is truly amazing how subtle the variations in colors can be, yet make so much difference. Too much pink in the tan, too much gray in the cream, too much blue in the yellow. Finally, I think I have found the right shade for my siding. It is called "Venetian Stucco" and it is very close to the same hue as the trim on the house but in a much lighter shade. It is hard to tell now if it will be too yellow for my taste but hopefully it will match beautifully and make my house a true gem in the neighborhood.

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.