Like There's No Tomorrow

When we last left our heroes, Jess had a HD coupon and Mike was picking away at the siding. On today's episode - not much has changed.

Yes, I used that HD coupon, but not for what I had originally planned. The dam thing nearly expired before I got a chance to use it! I realized at the last moment on the day of expiration, grabbed the coupon without measuring the doors or talking to Mike and figured - I'll figure it out when I get there.

So I ended up purchasing an octagonal window, which we had wanted for the hallway/stairway anyway. A good use of coupon if I do say so myself, especially at the last minute.

That weekend (not this past weekend, but the one previous) Mike owed me some baby time - which I traded in for house time. ie - He was supposed to babysit while I had a day off, but I instead I asked him to work on the house for me. The project of the moment - finishing the stripping on the front of the house.

You may remember that most of our old siding on the front of the house was stripped during construction of the farmer's porch last spring... except for the very top of the gambrel, above the farmer's porch roof.

Since we desperately needed to go to the dump to get rid of our old front door and some other cleanings out from Mike's parents' house - it seemed like the perfect opportunity to strip off the remainder of the siding and just add it to the pile. Mike started in on it first thing in the AM. And as soon as he began working, our neighbor Rich stopped by, eager to help.



They worked through the morning and by 2:30 were finished. Even though the dump doesn't close until 3, they decided that Sunday traffic would make it dam near impossible to make it anyway - so Rich offered up his truck to haul the plywood from the deepHo.

As you recall, under our old siding was.... well, older shingles. And under our older shingles, even older barnboard. Basically very rough, thick pieces of wood - barely processed and with large gaps and knots and all sorts of obstacles that make it difficult to attach new siding to. So when we stripped the rest of the front of the house, we decided it would be easiest to put up plywood before siding. (Makes things much more weather tight too!)

The remainder of the afternoon was spent putting up the plywood and tyvek. Our neighbor Dana came over to help with the measure and cut of the plywood - which was great because plywood cuts get tricky when you add in two windows, the gambrel shape, and the ridge vent.



Speaking of ridge vent - Mike also purchased a new one whilst at the HD. Our old one wasn't painted before it had been installed, so we figured while we're up there, lets start fresh and paint a new one so it doesn't rot right out. (I finally got around to painting it yesterday during the baby's morning nap.)

And that's where we stand. The gambrel is stripped and ready for siding! This past weekend nothing got done because... well.... I kinda sorta bought a new truck on Ebay. A new old truck that is. New to me I should say. And Mike and his friend TJ went down to VA to pick it up for me. I'm excited to get it, but the whole thing was such an impulse buy... I keep thinking to myself, "I could have and should have used that money on the house." I think about a new fridge and more siding and most of all, the bathroom.

It's the my-dad in me that makes me want to purchase things I need rather than things I want. It's the my-mom in me that makes me an impulsive buyer. So I'm pretty much always in conflict when it comes to spending, especially big purchases.

Anyway, that's the current state of affairs. We keep offering up a utility quad to any of our carpenter friends who want to come and finish the siding and put in that octagonal window... no takers yet, unbelievably.

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Sunday Story

Dateline, Sunday June 1st..... yes, it's already June 11th - so I'm 10 days behind. And if you think I've been neglecting this blog - you should hear about all the other stuff I've been neglecting... accidentally mind you.

I think I may have perhaps reached my limit on "stuff" going on. And brain overload has caused side effects too numerous to mention. Meanwhile Mike has been taking on mad side jobs on top of his usual weekly "guy friends to visit after work" list.

On to the Sunday story.

Of course, as you know, Sunday 6/1 was Mike's bday. And even though I hadn't originally wanted to do anything, see anyone, etc etc, a couple friends asked if they could come over with some BBQ stuff for a little impromptu party. I reluctantly agreed, but then decided to stop being such a poop head and invite more people. It was Mike's 30th after all.

But when I told Mike we were all having a party, he was not too enthusiastic about it. "I just want to get work done," he said. Well, then I threw my arms up and thought, "Why do I bother?!" But it was too late to cancel - it was already Friday when all this went down.

You know the story of Saturday. (see previous post) So we'll skip to Sunday.

Mike had me up at around 7 or 8 and we began ripping siding and shingles off the house - just like before, except higher up. (Because now the guys needed something to attach the roof of the porch to.)

I commemorated the occasion on one of the walls with a note and a smiley face.

Around 9 or 10, TJ and Paul had arrived to help us out. Meanwhile, our neighbor Rich brought over his staging for us to borrow, which really helped out on the higher, 8' sections.

Soon after that, I had make a Home Depot run for plywood, tyvek, and lead flashing. And I was not happy about it. The party was supposed to start around noontime and the house and porch were both in shambles and I had to leave my post to go out.

On top of that, the bill for all the materials was outrageous. Do you know how much a 12" wide roll of lead goes for now adays?! $140!!! I nearly died and prayed that this one roll would be able to get us through.

When I got back, I discovered that the guys had appeased the porch gods with some lizard torture.
And I suppose anything to bring some good luck....

Then I had to go on a beer run. Awesome. I was thrilled, as you can imagine. Meanwhile the guys put up plywood and began attaching beams to the posts.

The party started around 1:30, 2ish. And the guys were still working. I didn't even take these pics, I was too busy trying to apologize to everyone that the bday boy did not want to stop working. Despite the construction underway, the guys hung out and watched as Mike and TJ and Paul continued working. Us gals took our drinks to the picnic table in the back yard to at least get out of the kitchen.


The guys just really wanted to get all the plywood on and make the front of the house water tight. That was their goal. So they kept at it. I'm not sure what time they finished up, but at that point, we brought the picnic table on the porch and were finally able to all hang out together.

Here's the finally tally on trash:

And then we tortured the lizard some more...

And of course we had some good food courtesy of everyone (who each brought something to eat or drink) and our neighbor Dana, who made clams casino and jalepeno poppers.

So all in all it turned out to be a really good time and everyone said they had lotsa fun. Plus we got all the plywood attached.

A couple days later, Mike and I stapled on the Tyvek - and that's still at the point we're at now. We took a break last weekend due to extreme heat and did other fun stuff - like a dump run, scrap metal run, Rich's bday party across the street, drive-in movie, boating....

This weekend it'll probably be back to work though.

And that's the Sunday story. For all the pics, check out MYSPACE