Clean Up, Siding, and An Unexpected Guest

Yes, it's time again for the Sunday Show! The show where we present, for your reading and viewing pleasure, all the awesome and wonderful things that happened around the house on Sunday! You may have thought we were off the air - but yesterday unexpectedly kicked off the spring season of the Sunday Show in ways never thought possible.

We were up at our usual early hour on Sunday. And, inspired by a Saturday burn by our neighbor up the hill, (and not to mention my stick-gathering of two weeks ago) Mike went downtown at 9am and got a burn permit. Needless to say, we were burninating by before 10am. Awesome.

Shortly after the fire was self sufficient, Mike went about moving stuff in the yard. The camper - back to the gravel driveway. Those old logs - pushed down the hill with the skid steere. One lawn tractor - gave to a neighbor. Snowmobile - on the side of the garage, cover on. Junk - loaded in the truck for the dump. Sweet.

Although I must admit, this after photo doesn't look like much. But it looked a lot worse before. Additionally, Mike considered the grading project. He'll need to get himself a bigger machine, that's for sure. He estimated about an 18 inch difference from the garage addition to the edge of the hill. Plus, this nasty bit you see in the bottom third of this photo? All that has to be cut off as well. I'll be prodding Mike this week to remind him to source out a machine he can borrow on the cheap/free. Sounds like a plan.

And if you think that's all we've got on this edition of the Sunday Show - well, you're wrong! Around 12:30pm, Timmy and Richard came over and got right to work finishing the siding. Mudroom/Kitchen Side - done. (Save for a bit of trim and trim-painting.)

It's all one cohesive side! Imagine that.... Mike also cleaned up that side driveway whatever-you-want-to-call-it area. We had a buncha dirt piles there from snow plowing and sanding over the winter. Plus, we had our garage doors stored there on saw-horses. No more. Mike moved those, dug out the dirt, and put in some pea stone from the gravel driveway to fill in. Sigh of unexpected relief. I'll be prodding Mike some more to schedule his friend for garage door installation as soon as this upcoming weekend.

The last little triangle of siding up on top? (There on the right.) Oh yeah, it's done. Trim's back up. All is well with the world of siding.

If you simplify all and everything - you could call our siding half done. But, as Mike is quick to point out, the left hand side of the house is barren - no windows (save for an octagonal one yet to be installed), no doors, no additions, no porch, no nada. And without any of those strange cuts and jags, it will be quick work to side the left. (Not to mention less wasteful as well.) We're so much more then halfway there.

Nearing the end of the Sunday Show, Timmy made us a materials list for another upcoming Sunday Show. And believe it or not, it's not going to pinch my pockets too too badly.

Wrap for the last of the porch posts
Two more railings and a stair rail
Misc trim - and not much of it

Weather permitting, I will be prodding Mike to order everything on Friday. (Lotta prodding going on this week.)

Now it's time for the most Unexpected thing to ever happen on the Sunday Show. And I Missed It. MISSED IT! I'm so pissed. Ken Thompson stopped by. Name ring a bell? As in, just a couple weeks ago I was talking about Mr. and Mrs Robert Thompson, previous owners? And how the strange coincidence of my friend Christine having visited Mrs. Thompson caused me to reconsider all the unanswered questions about my house in my own mind??

And the dude shows up and Mike gives him the grand tour and I'm not there. Oh, I was livid.

Needless to say, he was impressed. Surprised that the bathroom had gone basically unchanged. Loved the kitchen, loved the tile. He did tell Mike in regards to the yard that they dug out a huge hill in order to build the garage. They dug it out and pushed it down the hill in back. It used to be just one giant hill in back of the house. And the family had always wanted to renovate, but didn't have the means to do what we did.

He said he usually has to go to the Cape for something every couple months. Mike encouraged him to stop by at any time, and I hope he does.

After that, Mike cleaned up the gravel driveway with the leaf blower.

And that's all we have time for this week on the Sunday Show! If you can't tell, I'm just giddy with excitement. Everything all of a sudden seems so close and easy again. If we can get that garage door installed next weekend.... If we can get the last posts trimmed and the last railings up next weekend.... If we can grade the backyard the weekend after that....

It's never that easy though, is it?

Coming At 'Cha

More materials are en route! At this point I'm hoping the whole thing can be finished by the annual Halloween Party - first Saturday of November... so I have to keep things moving, no matter how po' I feel. (Yes, as you can tell, no trucks have sold as of yet.)

I quickly realized today that, "hey, it's friday!" and if I don't want to be driving my butt to Morse on Saturday early AM, Mike needs to order materials. I sent him a text this morning and sure enough, they'll be delivered tomorrow morning.

Still on the to-do list, more painting, all the caulking, and purchase of trim.

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Blue Paint and White Trim

Last weekend, recall that Mike brought home blue tinted primer for the newly completed porch ceiling. What you may not recall, because I didn't get around to publishing the post, was that we received a brandy-new materials list from Timmy last Wednesday. 8 pre-primed 1x10's.

Thinking he had no time to have Morse Lumber deliver the goods, Mike went to the DeepHo on Friday night. (Much to my dismay, believe me - since it would have been cheaper at Morse.) But after being gone for what seemed like ever, Mike called in angst. The HD had nothing worthwhile. The boards were VERY poor quality, pre-primed gray and not white, and $30 a pop. He came home with nada.

So Saturday morning he called in the order to Morse and I went in a rush to pick it up at 9am, since they close at noon on Saturday. Lucky #1, Mike left me his truck. Lucky #2, the guys at Morse agreed to load and strap it for me. And though all that was lucky, it was still a bit stressful because our one man painting crew, Richard from across the street, was due over at 10am.

Sure enough, there he was, right when I pulled home in the driveway. And with a coffee for me to boot. (I needed it!)

After that madness, it was pretty much sooth sailing. Richard painted until he ran out of paint... we should have bought two gallons.  I suppose it was Lucky #3 that he was able to even round the corner.

You can pretty much see where the paint ended in this pic.... and honestly, the far end of that paint job was a real stretch and a half. Once we finish this coat of primer, we'll fill all the holes with caulk. A little backwards from our original plan - but it's probably better that way.

Why you ask? Well, Sunday the guys were over again bright and early to start trimming things out. They used up all of the wood we bought, cutting it down as needed to box in the top of the porch where the ceiling meets the framing. (Thus avoiding the larger cost of purchasing large boards, small boards, medium boards, etc etc.) And, they attached everything with the stronger framing nails. (Here's where I'm getting to the benefit of not-caulking.)

Very true, finishing nails would certainly leave less of a mark - but to the expense of strength. Better to hold it tight and use more caulk then to watch it fall some years and years down the line.

Already it looks so beautiful on the inside. We need to purchase some moulding to fit where the ceiling meets the trim to finish it off, but other then that, this is how it will look.

A portion of the front facing (outside) trim was also completed... until we ran out of materials of course, and looks similarly awesome.

Timmy and Richard left around 2ish, but Mike wanted to keep working. First he cleaned up the area, throwing out all the trash and just tiding up tools and whatnot. Then, he removed a few pieces of siding at the top where the ceiling meets the house and attached strapping. This had to be done so trim could be later attached there.

He also decided to trim out the front door - a decision I was personally psyched about. Especially since we had enough trim boards "in-stock" in the basement. We'll have to purchase some moulding to round that out too, but check another long standing not-done off the to-do list.

Up for this week - complete the primer coat on the ceiling and caulk. Purchase more materials - we have a new list, plus the moulding. Timmy is also going to bring by some samples of post trim, to give us an idea. Mike kinda wanted to increase the width of the posts - by a lot. Like double. Like 8" posts. I don't know if I'm hip to that. I hate columns. And wide posts would remind me of columns. Too masculine for me. I'm hip to a little bit of an increase - but no beefy posts por favor.

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More Then 1/2 A Ceiling

Thursday night I arrived home to such a welcome sight. All the guys - working away on the porch ceiling. It made my evening, for sure. And in just a couple short hours, we went from 1/3 ceiling to 2/3 ceiling.

Check out the funky angles - all an effort to reduce seams and keep the bead board running straight. Don't forget, this porch is funky in that it is a fat L shape, with a large portion near the french doors. So as we go into the bottom line of the L, we switch direction on our bead board. Yes, that's not the ideal situation, but again, to avoid mad seams, we decided to make the switch.

 So this portion in the pic above, it's hard to tell, but the direction is flipped. Note that the hole has been cut for the fan box. Additionally, all the outlet holes have been cut on the "done" side of the porch. (Quote unquote)

Meanwhile, today begins MA's famous tax-free weekend! Yes, from Sat - Sun, you could save the 6.25% sales tax on any and all purchases under $2500. (Don't think I'm not dreaming about a fridge... but not right now.) Just this morning I was at BJ's 5mins after it opened to do a large shopping trip. Glad I did too, it was already getting busy!

Soooo.... yeah. I'm also dreaming of some additional porch building materials. I have no clue what we need next. No clue if Mike will be available to shop with me. No clue if Morse Lumber is open on Sunday. 

But I do know that if worse comes to worse, we need paint and we need a fan. We need railings - which I want so bad. But I just don't know what kind or how many. Should we go with the more expensive no-maintenance forever and ever kind?! Should we go with the economical pressure treated that needs painting again and again? Then there's trim.... And what about some lattice for the lower third? Oh - and stair stuff...

Ahhhhhh - overload!!!

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