I think it's fair to conclude that I am not a blogger. LOL
I have done better photo-dumping on my facebook and instagram profiles. This has been great for immediate gratification of "well-done!" and "your house looks good!" responses, but it doesn't totally capture the narrative of it all.
I'll try to catch up, but it's going to be a lot of just random info dump.
today is October 29. 2020. I have been working at home since March 16th. It is the middle of the covid-19 pandemic and 4 days before the presidential election. To say that times are tense, would be a gross understatement! Like reasonable people, I have coped by keeping myself distracted with projects. (in addition to staying informed, wearing a mask in public, and going out to VOTE! on the first day of early voting.) I continue to pray for the pendulum to swing the other way and return sense and reason to the political landscape. BUT this is not a political "blog." Back to house stuff!
In May, shortly before my 40th birthday, I used my stimulus $ to make a long awaited change to the house.
Setting the scene, this is the exterior of the kitchen wall (recall this is an extension on the house).. there's split and rotten siding, and I have a dramatic plan to open up the house and get more light into the inside. the siding is especially bad below the door, where water gets trapped between the wall and the brick steps.
I bought some planks of siding, I figured out I could do it with just 4 12' lengths of new wood. So i started stripping the old siding off. I discovered some things. First, the wall behind my kitchen cabinets (to the left of the door from the outside) was framed to accept a large window... perhaps this extension was originally a bedroom? or maybe they reused framing from the original back wall of the house? I don't know. And second: the entire wall to the right of the door had absolutely no insulation. Evidence suggests there was some water damage here from a possible roof leak (water marks on the back of the drywall)... I suspect when they repaired it, they did not replace the insulation to save money. I had only planned to remove the bad boards, but I ended up stripping the whole wall. I reinsulated the right side, wrapped it with tar paper (as original) and put up the new siding and painted. Fortunately, the previous owner left me some of the left over exterior paint, so i was able to order the same color; "Elephant Ear" from Sherwin Williams. I also discovered the STRONGEST nail ever! I have owned that hammer for 20 years, may it rest in peace.
You may notice that the right side of the siding does not seem to be complete... because I have plans! My parents came to visit for my birthday... and to provide extra hands. I'll cut to the chase, I took out the single door and put in a French door!
AND.... I adopted! My new puppy, Bentley also got a new door!
It really changes the house in a good way. The kitchen feels bigger, there's more light... and Bentley loves being able to go out for piddles and poopies all on his own!
So that's the wrap on the door! It's been painted and trimmed since. This was also the time of the summer when everyone was doing the "pass the brush" transformations on intagram, so I did one: (later, I went back and painted the plastic window mullions black too)
I guess, that's it. welcome to my new kitchen. ;)
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