Exterior - 90% done

As much as I would have liked to spend my holiday weekend bobbing on a lake, we had work to do.  I'm taking the rest of the week off from my real job, so I'll update more as the week unfolds, but I want to share a couple of good photos from our three days of hard work on the exterior of our house and on the interior doors and trim. 

We are so close to being done.  (Ignore the yard.  Different project.)

Kevin and Scott installed the new soffit.  In the photo above you can see a tiny piece of the soffit is missing.  That's a funny story.  During the month we had the soffit out, we've had some birds nesting in the rafters.  Their little ones are almost ready to leave the nest, and we couldn't bring ourselves to kill them.  Once they leave the nest, we'll put that last piece up.

Andrea gave up a whole day off and helped us with the siding.  The heat index was close to 100, so we were trying to stay hydrated. 

Below you can see Andrea is using a wood spacer that Kevin created with a jig saw.  it has a two notches.  You set the lower notch on the last piece of siding you installed, and the upper notch holds the piece you are trying to install.  We used two of these block to make sure the piece was evenly spaced end-to-end.

This side was the hardest due to all of the junk connecting to the house: electrical, air conditioning, sump pump hose, etc. 

But it cleaned up nicely.  We still have to install the back door.  Next weekend, I think. 

And we got close.  Really close.  We were short by one bundle of siding.   This is partly because we had some trouble when we got started and lost a bundle working out the details.  So, another is on order and we should finish up soon.

And this is nice.  Previously, the hoses attached inside the house and then were fed outside through a hole, which was always open.  We sealed that up and installed a proper sillcock.  

Meanwhile, Ray and Dean were inside (in the hot, hot house) doors and going through a case of shims.  Not exaggerating.

This was on Saturday.  The new doors are going in.  We had to hustle because there was a big, nasty storm heading our way.  It basically rained all day. 

The pile in the garage was finally going down.  The orange wood and glass door is our new exterior back door.  We hope to install it next weekend. Behind it are two full-view storm doors for both the front and back. 

The old doors were piling up.   We ended up putting them in Ray's truck.  He has a demolition/salvage refuse site that will take them.  The rest of the odds and ends are in a Bagster.

 Jammin' on the one.

They're looking good.

This is exhaustion.

 And in the end, I learned how to install some door knobs.  I'll let you know if I manage to get any right.

They look great.  I do need to get extended strikes, though.  Probably today.

We had fun.  I can say that.  More and better pictures soon. 

Welcome!

I finally snapped some photos of our new front door.

Our inspiration was a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice--pulp and all.  The color is Sherwin Williams "Social Butterfly".  I wanted something cheerful and true to our home's era: 1956.  The door was ordered from Lyman Lumber and pre-painted so the finish is perfect.  The knob and starburst back plate are from Rejuvenation.

This is what it looks like from inside.  The color is Benjamin Moore's "Decorator's White".  We still need to add the trim (probably this weekend).  You might also notice that our closet door has gone missing.  More on that soon.

And this is what we had before:  a perfectly nice metal door from Lowe's or Home Depot or something.  Its only crime was being a a bit "granny", and it went to a happy home to continue its useful life. 

But back to our fashionable, cheerful new door.  In this photo, the color is very true to life.

This is much, much more "us".

Glass block bathroom window

One of my favorite parts of our exterior renovations has been replacing the bathroom window with a glass block window.  Our house is on a corner, and while we were showering, we could watch the neighbors walking their pooches.  It always feel wrong to us.  What we needed was some privacy.

Here is what we started with. I took this picture while removing the wallpaper in the bathroom, so it is especially unflattering. We initially removed the frosted window film and then regretted it.

While we were removing the siding, re-insulating and re-securing the house with OSB, the bathroom window was covered in plywood for a couple of weeks.  We had ordered a custom-fit glass block window from Lowe's and we were waiting for its arrival.

This was a depressing bathing experience, let me tell you.

On the day we replaced it, the plywood was cut out.

The window was popped right in, and Dean trimmed it up.  Isn't it lovely?  So bright and fresh.

No more peep show, and no more rotten, old wood. 

Terrible Mind: or Scott's other projects

I've mentioned before that Scott is the brains of our operation.  He's one of the most all-around talented people I know, and he's cute to boot.

He recently co-produced another video for Minneapolis-based (and sometimes Berlin-based) Dearling Physique.  He built the lighted cubes and sourced the motion-activated LED panels.  I think it looks great, and I wanted to share it with you.  Domino's knitwear is by Kevin Kramp.

Weekend of trim and little siding

Well, we got the band mostly back together this weekend, and some good work was accomplished.   Scott's dad is recovering from a hip replacement and doing well, but we forced him to stay home and get better.  We need him over Memorial Day, after all.  

So.  We started with a fully-wrapped house.  Only the old fascia remained, so that came off first.  

And then the new went on.  This process took several hours.

Meanwhile, we had Dean working on the interior window trim.  He's a professional carpenter and an absolute perfectionist.   I helped him when he needed an extra set of hands. 

Each window took about two hours start-to-finish to trim out. 

Here are the two side windows completed.  The top of the new trim is slightly lower than the old trim, so we have some wall work to do. 

 The new trim is so crisp and white.  And for fun, this is what we started with:

And this is what our front window looked like the day we closed.  How soon we forget!  Vertical blinds, old electrical, rotten windows.

And yesterday:

We did not make the window opening larger.  It just feels like we did. Here are some more trim progress photos from the weekend:

And that was just the inside.  Things happened outside, too.  

It took about four hours before I was needed, since I'm not very skilled.  I focused on clearing out the weedy patch behind the garage.  There were little shrubs growing through old cinder blocks.  I had to break them with a hammer to get them out.  I moved a ton of old rocks and broken pavers.

It's still ugly, but it's progress.

I also planted a small patch of my boulevard.

But Scott and Kevin spent the day trimming all of the exterior windows and doors AND they installed a glass block window in our bathroom.  More on that another day.  This picture was taken early Sunday morning.  It's not dramatic, but all of that trim takes skill and patience.  It looks amazing, in my opinion.

Sunday, I'll admit, the wheels sort of came off.  Not right away, but eventually exhaustion got the better of us. 

BUT,  Kevin and Scott got started on the front of the house that has the cedar shake accent.  These are real shakes attached to a board to ease installation.

And done!  We have a new mailbox and house numbers.  When the soffit piece is installed later this week, I'll put the fancy porch light in, too. I don't want it to get broken.

About that exhaustion, this is me watching my gorgeous front door go in.  You might notice that I've mowed the weeds during the course of the day. 

 I'll share that with you soon, but I need a better photo.  Here's a teaser.

 Memorial Day weekend, friends.  This exterior renovation will be about 95% complete.  Mark my words.