Just about done...with the siding

Thanks to my hardworking husband and a couple of friends (Adam Callender and Daryl McMullen...BIG thanks!) the entire siding project is just about finished! In fact, as of tomorrow evening it should be entirely completed. We could not be more pleased about the way it turned out. Sure, it would have been nice if it would have moved a little faster, not been 95 degrees most days, not have had to buy a rather expensive roofing nail gun to get the nails through the existing siding, and if we (okay, it was me) would not have ruined a few pieces of siding by cutting them too short. But honestly, it was all worth it for the end product.
If you are wondering what the ugly, old, crazy tall antenna is still doing next to the house in the last photo....well, I thought we were taking it down. We were taking it down. Then my (engineer) husband says, "I may want to tinker around with a windmill and that would be a perfect spot for one." Great.

Up next: heating and cooling. Or landscaping. Or electrical and plumbing. I'll let you know what we decide.

Safe 'n Secure

The house on Oak Street is now fully locked up. We have both a front and back door (they look identical) with a standard lock and deadbolt on each. We decided to go with the Camber Plank style doors and these will be the same doors that we'll use on the interior. Personally, I'm just thrilled that we have exited the padlock phase. It didn't seem like a great way to secure a property....especially since I could squeeze through a few 2x4's and still get into the house without a key.

To any robbers who might be reading this blog: there is nothing in the house. Nothing, zero, zilch. We take all the fancy tools with us when we're done (which is time consuming but probably worth it to make sure you don't steal them). The only reason we have locked things up is because it's our property and we don't want people in there who haven't been invited.

Visible Progress

It is with sheer excitement that I write this blog post! Today, if you happened to drive past our project house on Oak Street you would actually notice some improvement. Up to this point the house has basically continued to look worse. However, after a long, hot holiday weekend of Trent and I installing vinyl siding, things are looking better. As with most things, it took a little time to get the hang of it (which is the reason we started with the garage and not the house). Once we got a system down, we were flying. We are planning on doing the house next weekend (the longer chunk of time seems to serve us well on this task). For anyone looking to upgrade your own home - shop, shop, shop. I found that vinyl prices were all over the place. The small, private building supply store was about half the cost of Lowe's or Home Depot (plus, we ended up receiving a much higher grade vinyl).
**Oh....and the color we selected is called, "Montana Suede."

Steppin' up

We are officially done climbing a ladder into the second floor! We have stairs. Beautiful, sturdy, not quite up to new code stairs. While the photo shows me working on the stairs, relax: Trent was supervising the entire project. He pre-built the sides ahead of time, we leveled them out in their new home, and added each step. I was responsible for the steps and even got to use a few power tools. The photo is of me using some hand-saw-cutter-thing-a-ma-jig (I said I used the power tools....I didn't learn to identify them).