BEFORE AND AFTER: THE BACKSIDE

I love a good before and after, don't you? We don't get many of those around here, where things are always in progress and seldom truly finished. But check this out:

BEFORE: 

AFTER: 

Goodbye, grody old vinyl siding and weird little porches and additions made with metal shelving for floor joists. Hello, barn-red board and batten with your crisp lines and intentionally (which is better than accidentally) rustic vibe.

Can you tell I am thrilled the house is finally painted?

I am thrilled the house is finally painted.

Upcoming: Last night we were discussing the budget for three upcoming projects: 1) cleaning and repointing the stone foundation, 2) bricking the kitchen foundation and 3) gutters and downspouts. Hold onto your seats, people! ☺

RED

It is finished. (Well, the exterior painting anyway!) I'm thinking it's a vast improvement, or at the very least a drastic change, over where we started 4.5 years ago...

I think it makes a huge difference, and the painters did a very nice job. In pictures it's hard to get past the scrubby grass and long list of projects still to be completed (i.e. building a porch roof and railing, cleaning/repointing the stone foundation, bricking the Arxx block kitchen foundation, serious landscaping work, cleaning the gunk off the stairs, other general cleanup, etc.) but in person the new paint just looks so good, so crisp and so finished that, at the moment, everything else fades into the background for a change. Besides, the before picture is so bad I can't help but be thrilled with how far it's come.

I admit painting the gable above the front door red maybe wasn't quite the right choice, but I don't think I'd like other options either. A porch roof will help soften that contrast a lot, I think, though it's not terribly high on the priority list right now.


 And here's a similar angle a few months after we bought the house and decided to relocate the main entrance. What a nightmare this place used to be. While it's not perfect now, it feels pretty good to look back at these old photos and compare.

I really love the detail of the board and batten siding now that it's painted. It's hard to tell in the photos, but the fascia is color-matched to the chinking. I think it looks fantastic. I originally wanted to avoid a contrasting trim color and just do red all the way around, but we realized red fascia would look strange on the one section of the house that is entirely log.

The back door is now my favorite spot. I think we'll paint the door itself the same color as the chinking and fascia. (The current color is just primer.) I guess it's also time to peel the stickers off the windows. After 4+ years, the glue should be nice and easy to remove right? (Gulp.)

CRABBY APPLE RED: A LITTLE PREVIEW

Suddenly I love my house. As of right now (which would be Saturday afternoon), the painting crew is about 3/4 finished painting the board and batten siding. They'll be be back tomorrow to wrap up. More photos to come once it's all done. Until tomorrow, here's what it's looking like with a fresh coat of Crabby Apple Red. The late afternoon sun plays tricks with the camera and the color. The color has slightly purple undertones rather than orange, and for once I think we've picked just the right color.

They haven't gotten to the front or the trim yet, but by tomorrow afternoon things will be looking very different from the road. Can't wait.

 

Almost five years in, I think I've waited long enough. Worth it though. Loving the outcome so far. 

What do you think?

MORE SIDING

Thanks to a turn in the weather over the weekend (brr!), this is where we still are with the siding. So we have just one coat on one little section. Oh well -- it's something different to look at for awhile at least, and it helps me to visualize the final product and the exact landscaping needs a lot better. (Needs more evergreen!)

My photo editing skills are lacking, but I promise the color really is less orange and more cranberry than it may look on your screen, and like I said before, it will darken as we put on subsequent coats. While I actually really like it in person (and Ez does too), I feel the need to defend or over-explain the paint color a lot on this blog -- maybe it was the lack of reaction my last post got, or the comments I've gotten in the past about red being a bad choice. But let me just say, my first mistake was buying this house. The second was posting all about it on the internet for the world to see/judge. But I still don't regret this paint color choice.

Side note: The foundation under the kitchen is not designed to be exposed, so it will be covered with brick to match the porch steps.

This didn't turn out to be much of an update... so, hello! How was your Thanksgiving? Johnnie loved partaking of her first Thanksgiving dinner (she was 3 months old last year), and her favorite part were these parmesan spinach ball things that are her great-grandmother's holiday specialty. (She did not eat any of the turkey, because she's kind of a self-proclaimed vegetarian.)

More to come soon, I hope!

THE LAST OF THE SIDING

...is going up!

CURB APPEAL UPDATES

Hey guess what -- I have not one, not two, but THREE updates on the exterior of the house to share! And you thought I totally forgot this was a home renovation blog...

First, my dad came down last weekend and helped Ez finish putting up the battens on the kitchen section. (Thanks Dad!) Paint is the next step for this siding project, which is just so exciting. I'm hoping and praying the painting can be done in the next couple weekends, before winter hits us hard. I would love to have a painted house by Christmas. It won't cure all that ails the outside of this house, but it will look a lot more homey and a lot less embarrassing. 

Note: This weekend I WILL scrub the green mossy gunk off the brick steps if it kills me. Ick. 

The next update is the gable. Ez and our carpenter friend John ripped off all the old siding -- the last of the old grimey stuff that remained on the house, yippee! -- and have begun framing it out and prepping it for a board and batten siding treatment to match the rest of the house. There was old wood German siding underneath, which they left in place because it was solid and will provide a nice base for the new siding. 

You might not notice any difference at all, but honestly I think it looks better already, like it can breathe a little more... That vinyl was the last vestige of the old order around here. Now it's officially been conquered. Here was the front of the house just a few weeks ago, missing the battens on the kitchen area and being weighed down by the old vinyl siding still clinging to the gable (with that sexy little piece of pink insulation peeking out underneath.)

Finally, update numero tres, the chinking around the front door is all done. That was a small change that made a big difference in my daily interaction with the house. Every day I'd walk up to the front door and roll my eyes at those gaps. Though it's just a small update and a small surface area, it made a big difference to me.

Here it was before (the door looks brighter red here because it only had one coat of red paint over top of white primer at the time). See how the area around the door was missing the nice chinking?





So, over the next few weeks we're looking at finishing the last of the board and batten siding installation, hopefully painting it, and scrubbing that darned porch. Someday we'll move onto repointing the stone foundation, bricking the kitchen foundation, building a porch roof and doing some landscaping. All in due time.

But at least it's overall looking MUCH better than before. This was about 2 years ago. Ouch.

It definitely helps looking at pictures from the earlier stages. Good gracious we've come a long way!

Windows Update

S and John (our carpenter friend) got the top windows put in above the kitchen last weekend. I don't have a lot to say about this right now... but for posterity's sake, here's a picture. There's still so much to do to the exterior before it all comes together, but this is another step closer.

The room above the kitchen, which is kind of a multipurpose master closet and laundry room, now has lots of light coming in, which pleases me thoroughly. I love natural light and would live in an all-glass house if we didn't have any neighbors.

In other news, I am still pregnant -- which is good news right now! Hopefully we can eke out another week before she comes. A functioning laundry room (the #1 thing I want to have done beforehand) is within very close view! Here's hoping for a productive weekend.

Have a good one you guys!

Sneak Peek: Kitchen Walls

We had to put up a small portion of actual wall in our kitchen so that the new electrical panel could be installed. We still have some electrical work to do so we aren't ready to close off the other walls, but here's a preview of what's to come:

This is the same wood we're using for the siding. We were going to rip the boards on the tablesaw and go with narrower planks, but honestly the wider board is easier and faster to install and amounts to less waste -- all good things at this point. The wider planks look a little more substantial and rustic too, which I think will play nicely off all of the steel and industrial items that will be filling this space.

Getting there.

(Sorry my posts aren't very creative or witty lately. I'm running ragged but am still excited to share things with you.)

Curb appeal progress.

Notice anything different and/or fantastic about these pictures?

The board and batten siding started going up over the weekend on the bottom half of the kitchen. We had to get the siding at least started on the bottom half so our new electrical box can be installed. We are still waiting for the top floor windows to arrive, so we won't be able to finish putting up the siding until those are installed.

Also, the new brick front porch has also been in progress over the past week or so! I'll write a separate post once it's finished, which should be really soon. The brick itself is so beautiful -- it matches the chimneys.

The porch is a bit narrower than I originally wanted (due to budget constraints), but now that it's up I actually think it's going to look great once it's all finished.

The roof is not a priority at this point, but here's the newest rough Sketchup of the plan.The roof will break up the lines a bit and give the entrance some extra dimension. And yes, there will be railings -- we just haven't gotten that far yet.

We are getting closer! The summer is flying by though. Only 4-7 weeks left of this crazy pace before the baby arrives! We're so excited and exhausted already. ☺

Priming

Another in-progress project happening at 3820: priming the front and back of the wood siding for the kitchen section. (That would be that whole dingy gray section that really looks like it could use some new siding.) FYI S is handling all this by himself, because it is some smelly stuff. This wood will be turned into board and batten, just like what you see on the back of the house.

In just a few weeks, after some additional structural work and new window installation, we will be ready to have this siding put up. The whole house, aside from the exposed log, will then be painted a rich barn red. (We're using Sherwin Williams Crabby Apple. Great name, right?)

I am beyond excited about the siding -- once it's up, the house will finally start making sense and looking unified. (I say that a lot, don't I?) Even if we don't get around to painting it right away (though I really hope we do!), it will still have a big impact. We've gone through many stages of wonk, and the siding will be proof to the neighborhood that we're finally coming out of it.

We've actually been pretty fortunate that our neighbors haven't complained too much over the past 2.5 years through all of this. I don't think all neighborhoods would be quite this understanding. They do ask questions and some are even occasionally quite helpful, though we can tell most of them think we're nuts.

I've had some readers who have left comments suggesting that they think we're nuts too, but they don't tend to stick around very long. Thanks to all of you who have been loyal and cheered us on throughout this process! Crazy people need friends too.

PS - I have a sweet photo print giveaway happening on the blog all this week! Sign up now!

Grow baby grow!

We had a pretty productive weekend around here. One of the biggest accomplishments was planting grass in the front yard! (Well, about two-thirds of the front yard... but let's not split hairs.) In addition to making the front yard look a million times better, planting grass is a requirement by the permit office because our property feeds into a tiny stream that feeds into the Chesapeake Bay. This is serious business, and implementing an erosion plan is critical.

We are using Pennington Smart Seed (along with Pennington Lawn Starter Fertilizer) and hoping for some good, fast-growing results. It's been scorching hot, so we're being diligent about watering until it starts taking off. Our first attempt at planting grass a year and a half ago in our side yard went amazingly well, so we're hoping for repeat results this time around.

As you can see below, we are almost finished carving out the new circular driveway. (There is still some finessing to do in some places, but it's progress.) We actually don't plan to have a whole front yard full of grass as a long-term solution -- in fact, we'd love to do some serious planting and landscaping in the next year or two so that there will be less mowing, more variety of plant life and more curb appeal. But like I said, we are required to implement an erosion plan ASAP, and grass is a much more affordable solution than other plants/trees at this point.





What else was productive about our weekend? Well, sadly the carpenters did not come to work on the kitchen due to the holiday, but we did drive up to Pennsylvania on Saturday to pick up the wood for the board and batten siding for the kitchen section. (We buy it from an Amish guy who mills and kiln dries it for us at a really good price.)

I am so excited that in just a few weeks, when the kitchen framing is done, we will be ready for siding! Between that and grass, the front view of the house will really start looking like something. And once we paint the siding Crabby Apple Red (maybe this summer, maybe not), look out!

I've really got an itch to get things done around the house, and the more we get done the more I feel motivated to keep going. I wish I had another day off to knock some things off the list! How about you? What did you do over the holiday weekend?

Curb Appeal (?)

We have some big decisions to make ASAP about the front of the house. It was difficult to finalize some aspects of the plan before we got to this point for a variety of reasons that I will not go into for the sake of everyone's sanity. (Suffice it to say, occasionally I still wonder if this house was a huge mistake.)

But here we are -- mulling over some of the biggest things that will affect the curb appeal. Screw this up, and we should've just left the house in its original funky state. The pressure is on.

Here's the latest contender for the plan, which I drew rather roughly with Sketchup. For the record, Sketchup was not as intuitive for me as I hoped, so please squint a little and be forgiving. We're looking at the overall picture here.

I wish we had the budget to consult an architect, but alas we're on our own. Most of my creative energy is going toward baby growing, so I don't have anything left in the tank right now to fully describe everything that's going on in this picture. But I will address any questions in the comments section, so ask away!

Check back in a few days for the final plan... until then I will taking it easy and praying that we make the right decisions. After all this, we'd rather not have a terribly awkward looking house. It'll never be totally without quirks and oddities, but neither will any of us I guess!

We have a winner!

I was going to wait until we actually started painting the house to announce the final color choice, but since the weather is not cooperating...

The winner is Crabby Apple by Sherwin Williams. Love the name -- so apropos for the house. This photo however is terrible -- the color is actually more of a purply red than an orange red.

Anyway I know some of you may be disgusted by this decision, because the poll says green is still edging out red as the color of choice among you lovely readers. I really appreciated your opinions and input though! We both felt red was the right choice deep down, so we went with it and we're both very excited to get this going. If only the weather will hold!

Log Progress: So Stinking Close!

Check it out! We have some pretty logs. And lots of things to climb on, apparently.

Our ol' buddy Chris has been hard at work on our exterior logs lately. Actually, the logs themselves have been done for awhile; the chinking (the stuff in between the logs) is what's still in progress. (I've watched him do it, and it's more of an art than a trade I think.) He's almost done - just a few spaces in the upper right area still to go. He also had to frame out the upper window, which we tried to match as closely as possible to the lower windows.

The color is a little more "tan" than we originally intended, but it's growing on me and I think I will like it even better when the board and batten siding is actually painted its intended color instead of being so darned blindingly white. (It seriously hurts your eyes when the sun reflects off it. I'm sure it can be seen from space.)

And just for fun, here is the same view almost 2 years ago:

I think we can safely say it looks improved. Yard cleanup is still somewhat of a problem, but even that is getting less embarrassing. That's kinda the goal these days -- instead of "Barbie Dream House" we're going for "less and less embarrassing all the time."

Primed. Almost.

Saturday was another productive day of painting. We are now about 95% done with the prime coat. If you look closely you can see the small areas we have left on the upper and lower gables. FYI, this is the very back of the house -- not an angle I usually photograph.

Special thanks to my dad for helping last weekend and to S's mom and sister for helping on Saturday. Drudgery (and standing on a ladder all day) is much more tolerable when loved ones are near, suffering with you.

We also bought the actual exterior paint on Saturday morning. Yes, we finally made a decision and there's no going back. Can't wait to show it to you!

Paint Samples

Here are a few of the paint samples we splashed on the side of the house. Many of the shades of green did not turn out as expected -- I've found that greens especially are hard for me to gauge in the store. Hence the need for samples!

In other news, kitchen things are happening! My father-in-law is working at our house today, overseeing the concrete crew as they fill the Arxx foundation under the kitchen. I will be so thrilled when we won't have to worry about anything collapsing anymore. Sad but true.

We have also contacted our favorite go-to carpenters, who said they would make time to squeeze us in as soon as we are ready -- even as soon as next Monday if we want. We try to do most work ourselves when possible, but when it comes to structural tasks (like, say, reframing the kitchen and installing 2nd floor joists) we hire pros to make sure it's done right. Bonus: they work about 100x faster than we ever could.

Prepare for takeoff.

Paint Colors: A Poll

As I mentioned, we have two very different colors in mind for our pine board and batten siding. We're very torn between which we like better, though I think I might be happy with either in the end.

First there's rustic barn red (which does occasionally get weird reactions from some folks whenever I mention it as an option). It's almost the obvious choice for board and batten siding and just seems to go well with the rusticity of the logs...

Then there's this sagey green color that is more calm and earthy. And a bit more conservative.

Image via 1stclassexteriors.com

Just when I think I've made up my mind... well, you know how it goes. So I need your help. Please take my quick little poll to cast your vote for the color you like better!

In case you need a reminder, this is what the side of the house looks like where the siding meets the log. The kitchen exterior will also be painted the same color.

Which paint color do you prefer?
	Barn red
	Earthy green
pollcode.com free polls

House Coat

Reluctant to leave our board and batten siding bare and vulnerable for another winter, I started priming it over the weekend using Duron's Maxwood Exterior Wood Primer. After about 3 hours the house went from looking like this:

...to looking like this:

I do recognize that it looks pretty wonky considering that it's only partially done, but would you really expect anything different around here? The ol' blog house is a haven of wonk. Hopefully we'll have nice weather over the next few weeks to finish it up. Unfortunately I am painting it with a roller and brush because our sprayer isn't cooperating. (It will go faster if you come to help!!! Hint hint.) I will sort of miss the bare wood look, though it wasn't practical and didn't match the logs.

Anyway, the Maxwood primer is more like a "coating" than a paint -- it goes on very easily and instead of soaking in, it sort of coats the wood for better waterproofing. Time will tell how well it protects, but so far I'm a fan. (And I'm not even getting paid to say that.)

Don't worry -- the house will not be white. We have two colors we're tossing back and forth for the final paint job. I will post samples soon. But there's no real hurry -- we don't intend to actually paint the house until next year, after the kitchen section is sided. One thing at a time!

The limp of the Irish

I was concerned about housing so many guests during Cassie and Pat's wedding. After all, a half-renovated house with two bedrooms, one bathroom and no kitchen is just not equipped to sleep 8 people comfortably. But since the groom's family was arriving a few days early to help with the setup, and because all the nearby hotels were booked for a college graduation, we made it work so that Patrick's entourage could stay close to the wedding site. (S and I opted for the hotel room instead, which was great because it put him closer to work, and I got a chance to work outside the house for a change.)

Thanks to air mattresses, our really big couch and a large supply of snacks, our guests said they were very comfortable during their Thursday to Sunday stay. The only real issue was our lack of stair railing at the back door, which is currently our main entrance:

This was actually more of a problem than anyone could have anticipated. You see, the groom's brother had foot surgery a few weeks ago, so he arrived on crutches. Oops #1.Then, an aunt turned her ankle shortly after arriving and hobbled around for most of the trip, using that walking stick in the photo for support. Oops #2. Then, the morning of the wedding, 6-year-old Mikaela had an incident with the golf cart and strained a ligament in her ankle. They were dropping like flies! And of course we had no railing to help these poor wounded souls get in and out of our house. Oops oops oops.

But we all laughed about it in the end, when we received the sweet gift that our guests had brought us all the way from Chicago. Their family has very deep Irish roots and the wedding had lots of Irish flair, so they gifted us with a framed Irish blessing -- which they had chosen long before the events of the trip unfolded. We laughed so hard when we opened it that we almost couldn't breathe.

"May those who love us love us;
And those that don't love us,
May God turn their hearts.
And if He doesn't turn their hearts,
May he turn the ankles,
So we'll know them by their limping."

I'd have maybe preferred a pot of gold, but a good laugh (and a little wonderment at the coincidence!) was almost just as good.

Are you tired of siding pictures yet?

Good news... Except for the tiny sliver of the gable you see at the top of the picture, the siding is DONE! Well, I should say that it's HUNG. Now we have to caulk it (wake me when it's over) and at least get the primer/sealer on it before the temperatures drop too low.

So what do you think?

I am so thrilled I could jump up and down. And I did. And I might again.

In other news, the chinking is more than halfway done, and it is looking AWESOME.

It reminds me of a stack of whoopie pies.

I think I'm actually starting to fall in love with this place a little bit. A LITTLE bit.