Since we moved into our house in May of 2002 Cliff had two goals! The first was to chop down an overgrown and not so sightly tree in our front yard. We already had another tree which we liked. The tree he wanted to take down was near our sewer line as well and could be a concern at some point. So last summer, against my wishes, he chopped it down with the help of a lot of neighbors. We had to pay someone to cut the top 10 or so feet first. It turned out to be a lot of work but I'll admit the curb appeal of our house is a lot nicer now. I don't have any pics of it on this computer. Darn it!The second thing he dreamed of doing was to reside the house. Well against my wishes he did that too. It has taken a lot of hard work and determination, but he finished it! He had the help of his brother and a few friends. And I helped a lot too. We have a few small things left to do but overall it is done. He not only resided the house with James Hardy Board (concrete boards), he added new insulation to all the exterior walls, he wrapped the house in Tyvec, sided it, then we put two coats of paint! Whew! I thought it would never get done. The hardest things was having to measure everything and then cutting the siding and then measuring where it needed to sit on the board it went over, and then nail it in. And the boards are beautiful but heavy. We saved thousands by doing it ourselves but it was a huge job. He let me pick out the paint colors. Our front door matches the shutters but you can't see it because it is open. I think it turned out nice. We decided against earth tones. We were sick of earth tones and wanted something different.
I'm really proud of his determination and stamina. And I'm very pleased with his work. I think it looks great! He now has a nasty case of tennis elbow though. So he put forth a lot of elbow grease! And now I am cringing because he wants to re-do the basement. Sigh. It will probably be done against my wishes.
Home ownership is a huge commitment and expensive! Ouch!
4 comments:
Wow! It looks fantastic! I wouldn't have recognized it if I drove up! There's another word for elbow grease, it's "sweat equity".
We've done various home improvements ourselves over the years. It IS a lot of work and no fun especially with little ones about, but it'll be worth it when you go to sell and in the meantime you can feel proud of a job well done and a pretty house!
It is a lot of work when the kids are young. We think our house looks pretty too. Thanks!
I like your house too! I can't remember but isn't it blue?
It used to be blue. About five years ago we scraped it down and repainted it green. I call it a Martha Stewart Green with cream trim. It took us all spring, summer and fall to get it done. It was a horrible peeled paint look for months! When we finally finished it (the painting part is the quickest!) we kept getting comments from the neighbors about how good it looked. We had to do more than scrape and paint. Rick rebuilt window frames that'd been rotted and put cedar trim pieces on the corners. Our siding is the original cedar ciding and we wanted to preserve that but we had to replace several boards. Like you know -- a lot of work!! Now it needs some touching up again!
Cedar would be neat siding. I'm not sure what ours was other than rotting and warped. LOL. My husband said it was just large sheets of plywood.
I thought your house was very pretty the one time I saw it to drop off a book.
I. Had. No. Idea. Owning a house was sooooo much work. Not just house work either. LOL. The house I grew up in was brick.
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