Every House Deserves a Christmas Present!

Here is ours:

This is one of those splurges we could justify no other way, except to gift it to the house. We've been eyeing house numbers like these for some time now, and decided that installing them in the below zero weather we've been having in Minnesota would be fun. Actually, I think they will wait until spring, since we are planning to do to the rest of the house what we did to the west side last summer. We also ordered new lights, an outdoor sconce for the front and a matching ceiling fixture for the inside of the porch. I'll post pictures of these when they come.

It has been busy here at the bungled house, so the posts went off my to-do list for awhile, though the projects have been going smoothly. I am going to post a ton, now, to make up for it. Sorry for playing catch up.

By the way, on New Year's Eve, we saw this house for the first time two years ago!

We have painted our last paint....

The house painting is done!  I love to be able to do one of these posts where months of hard work comes together into something we are really proud of.  I know it's just one side, and there are three more to go and all, but it feels really good to say look what we did!

I apologize for the angle on all of these, but there's only about 9 feet of space before I hit the neighbor's fence, so full-on pictures just aren't happening.  Although I have thought about asking if I could prop up a ladder on his porch....

The storms aren't back on yet, because Kevin is actually going to whip together some combination wood storms.  They will have panels you can put on and remove from the inside.  All of the storms on the house are either in really bad shape or aluminum, so new storms has been a priority.  He is estimating about $50 a storm in materials, so I would expect them to come out around $75-100 because it's home improvement and everything always costs more than you think it will.  Although we are beginning to factor that into our budgets.  We were originally going to reuse the panes on the aluminum ones, but who knows, we might have to buy or make some new ones.  

In that picture above, you can see part of the windows we refinished last summer.  I like the white and gray with the shellac.  

Here's a close-up of where the trim meets the clapboard.  The Duramax paint is a winner.  It coats so well and looks great. It's really thick, so when it dries, everything looks smooth.  

Kevin had to get on the roof to do the very peak, because our ladder couldn't quite make it up that high.  The roof is a pretty steep angle and he had to use the chimney and vent stack to rest his paint bucket on while getting up and down from the roof.  He is happy to report that the roof is still gray; no paint was spilled. 

And finally, a picture of our new addition: A Honey Crisp apple tree.  Incidently, Honey Crisp apple trees also fit into our car, though I don't think it was too happy.  I drove fast.

PAINT!!!!!!!!!

As we were painting the house today, we got into a discussion over which part of the project was our favorite.  Kevin said that scraping was his at first. I think he changed his mind after I pointed out that with all of the respirators and power tools during the paint scraping process, it wouldn't have been possible for us to be carrying on a conversation like we were.  

I had no hesitation.  I love painting.  It's just so satisfying to see the paint up on the house, transforming it into the vision we had all along.   Here is how we left the house last weekend: 

Here is how we left it this weekend:

It is so close to being done.  That is with one coat of paint.  Kevin finished more than half of the shingles tonight.  The new ones show up, but I think with a second coat it shouldn't be too noticeable.  Here is a close-up of the shingles:

I don't know if you can really see it or not.  I'll have to take a better picture.  We would have been done this weekend for sure except on Friday we took advantage of my dad's truck and went on two dump runs.  One for the asbestos siding we took off the side of the house and one for random stuff like The Dryer That Almost Killed Kevin and the fake wood paneling from the kitchen wall (What is with us and only doing one wall?). Factoring in the hour there and back for the truck, the dump runs took 12 hours.  Turns out they like to keep the landfill wayyy out in the middle of nowhere.  The dump runs are really part of our new project... cleaning!  We have a back porch on our house that has served as the dumping grounds for junk that we don't want to deal with.  It also houses our bikes and power tools because things of value don't seem to do well in the garage.  They walk off.  So that needs some major organizing.  I had this thing that unlike other urban folk who seems to have garages too full to fit their cars, my car would always be able to fit in the garage.  That was before the fence project and the siding project.  So that needs to be rectified, because, after six years without a garage, I refuse to scrape my windows in the winter.  We also have an office that is pretty full of crap.  We would totally be kicked out of a condo if we ever lived in one.  

Finally, Arlo's latest garden antics.  I snuck up on him eating the snap peas, vine and all. This might have been my fault, because I've been sharing sweet peas from the farmer's market with him.  

Is it just me...

...or are rabbits getting bigger these days?  

This is what greeted us after a few panicked minutes of not being able to find Arlo anywhere in the yard yesterday. Finally he poked his head out from behind the broccoli leaves. I think he was a little perturbed that we took pictures and laughed at him before helping him out.

Anyway, on to the house.  We are officially done scraping paint!  And it only took about two months!  We are now onto repairs and cleaning.  The repairs actually are going pretty fast. Here's a nifty one to hide the fact that the facia slipped down slightly (look up at the peak of the roof): 

I also filled all of the nail holes, which added up to quite a few with both the old siding and the tar paper behind it nailed in.  Sorry there are no riveting pictures of filled nail holes. We filled nail holes and repaired damage (of which there was surprisingly little) with this: 

It's pretty smelly stuff (I actually donned the respirator even though it was supposed to be my first day without it), but it worked really well. It's actually an epoxy more than a wood filler.  If you're going to use it, do it when it's shady--it cured too quickly if the sun hit it.  

We're also repairing a piece of the skirting.  It had bowed out, and the siding had come in slightly to make a weird gap.  We used shim to bring a couple of clapboard pieces out slightly, and then took out shims that were behind the skirting (who knows why they were there in the first place).  Here is the spot where the board is removed.  

And here is all of the nasties living behind the board...eeew! That's dust, among other things.

We also had to remove one damaged clapboard as part of the fix on this corner.  I believe these actually aren't clapboard at all, but beveled siding. Anyone know anything more about this? Or where we can get a replacement?  We are planning to take the broken one down to Siwek's Lumber and have a new one milled, though I think this is going to be expensive. Here's the profile.

Another, and perhaps the most involved project (especially since Kevin's parents have our miter saw for the weekend) was replacing the broken shakes.  Here you can see the dog eared edge pieces.  

This is about how we left the house after the weekend, although as a final project, Kevin cleaned it, so it looks much fresher. This picture was taken yesterday.

We would like to have at least a coat of primer on by the end of next weekend.  How exciting!

School's out for the summer....

Okay, really I have three more days, but I can dream, right?  We took a short break in house project spending to blow some money on a new computer, as the one we had (with the Obama sticker) refused to charge properly anymore.  Here they sit while we are busy working on the house on Saturday, happily transferring data.  I have to say one thing about Apple, and then I will start writing about the house, I promise.  The process of switching to a new computer was effortless.  They hung out in the living room all day, and at the end, it was like using a newer, shinier, hipper version of my old computer.  Everything was in its place.

Okay, we now return to the house blog.

The siding project has been going on steadily.  We decided, even though we have all those fancy tools, that hand scraping the clapboards is the way to go.  I spray it down with the hose, then scrape, in an attempt to keep the lead dust at bay.  

Why, you ask did we decide to scrape by hand? The paint failure on the clapboard was significant, meaning on most parts with a little muscle, the paint kind of flies off (goggles are a must).  The Paint Shaver, though integral to the trim, seemed like overkill for the siding itself.  About 2/3 of the house is scraped, and Kevin is much further along on the beadboard soffits. This photo was taken before we began work on Saturday.  I would go out and take one now, but it is dark and it would be hard to see.  Picture most of the gray paint and most of the white paint gone and you'll get the idea.  We plan on this being our last paint scraping weekend.  Funny enough, we've had people lining up to help paint, but no one wanted to help scrape.  I feel like the Little Red Hen. 

Last, I give you a helpful tip we've discovered: 

This is our tool basket.  Everything for the project (that doesn't have its own case) goes into the basket.  I have yet to go hunting for a tool during the project, and carting things in and out is a breeze.  

A Quick Update

We spent the weekend stripping paint off the trim on the house. We are actually pretty close to a point where we will be able to start fixing stuff and priming. Maybe another weekend worth of work paint removal. I would post pictures but the battery on the camera is dead and I am too tired to charge it and take pictures. Sad.

Our neighbors are having very different reactions to this project. The ones closest to the side we are doing are thrilled, which is good because the paint shaver is not a quiet tool. They really like the look of the house and are excited about seeing it brought back to it's glorious little bungalow state.

Our neighbor on the other side laughed at us when we told her what we are doing. Not a mean laugh, more of a laugh of disbelief. Both of our current project and our project output in general. She said we are making her feel lazy. I think we are getting a reputation....

Hello Bungalow!

So we got carried away yesterday.... and turned our house into a bungalow. Just to give you an idea (lucky we did the fence project or we would have no before pictures of this side of the house) this is what we began with:I know it's not the best picture, but you get the idea. We lucked out (so far). There is not one clapboard that needs to be replaced. There are maybe ten shingles that need to be replaced due to splitting from nails. We LOVE it. I don't think I can even express how much I love the siding. The shingles have a docked corner where they meet the sofit. If you zoom in on this picture, you can see it.


This is not to say everything is perfect. We need to redo the corner trim. The skirt is missing some trim. Poor girl.
Also, the beadboard is giving us trouble. There are roofing nails sticking into it, so the heat gun, scrapers, and the new paint shaver are pretty useless. It is protected, so a lot of the paint is in good condition and won't come off. We are considering Peel Away. Anyone used this? Is it worth it? Any other ideas? Other than the beadboard, the rest of the project seems doable.

The old cement asbestos shingles are double bagged sitting in our garage. We wore respirators the whole time, and maybe cracked 10% of them, so safety-wise, I think we're doing pretty well.


And I LOVE it.

Burning down the house....

Okay, so it just smoked a little. That's right, Kevin started the house on fire. Seriously, with the nice work on the fence and our finished bedroom, I was beginning to think we needed to change the name of the blog to reflect our mad skills. But I was brought back down to Earth today.

We were maybe ten minutes into the project when Kevin, who was on the ladder tackling the beadboard with the heat gun calmly asked, "Sarah, would you get a spray bottle?" I was busy into my own work, and told him just a second, until he asked again, this time with a little more urgency. That's when I looked up.

A comic (if you weren't us) routine followed, including a mad dash for the hose, running over to the burning corner, realizing the water wasn't on, and finally spraying from all angles and getting everything wet in the process. In case you are wondering, everything is okay (I can't even see where it's burned), and we live two blocks from the fire department, so even if we tried we would have a hard time doing too much damage. Needless to say, Kevin has been working with the heat gun on a much lower setting.
This is a shot of Kevin's progress for the day. The very corner, in the upper left of the picture is the infamous burned area. See? You can't even tell. The black area closer to the house in the photo is not from us. Wood rot??
Here's my progress form the day. The window is pretty close to being done, and will probably be done tomorrow, after I make a run to my sister's new house (they bought a Victorian) to give her rhubarb and onions. Finally, here is a close-up of the clapboard we stripped. It looks like it's in great shape, no?

Distractions

This is a post meant to distract you from the lack of work on the bungled-house lately. Actually, we've been doing plenty on the yard, thanks to the Friends School plant sale bounty we recently brought in.
This is my expanded garden. It used to be about a foot wide and about 3/4 as long. It's been quadrupled. We are growing lots of edibles this year, including grapes, blueberries, watermelon, tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, strawberries, lettuce, spinach, cucumbers, currants, rhubarb, carrots, beans, peas... yum.


Now, you might say, "Boy, Sarah and Kevin, your water bills are going to skyrocket with all of that stuff to water!"

Not with this!
It was my birthday present from Kevin. We got it at the Reuse-it Center. By the way, if anyone has any advice on how to get it to seal, let me know. We can get it to fill about half-way, but it still has see-through slits.


Finally, to distract you further from our lack of starting on the siding project, pictures of officially finished fence.
Look at that beautiful gate!
And what a beautiful section! The top rail is the newest addition.Last but not least: Dog Enjoying Fence.

Planning for a Job

Before the first hole is drilled, paint is scraped or post is set, a lot of behind the scenes action goes on over here at the bungled house. A lot of fast-paced, exciting action. Like this:Okay, so that picture was taken three years ago (about a week after we got Arlo). However, the job he is modeling, that of researcher, is of utmost importance.

For instance: the paint job on the exterior has not yet officially begun, but research has been conducted for months. Kevin and I spend a lot of time on this step. We look at tools, how-to guides, and products. I would say, in the last month or so, I have read no less than six "how to paint your house" articles. Everyone has an opinion about techniques, paint and primer. When their is disagreement, we try to find some actual research to back up claims. See, mom and dad, those liberal arts college degrees are paying off in ways you never thought possible.

So, I now present to you our research findings in,

How to Paint your House Bungled-Style*

*Subject to change once we get into this project and realize all our research was for naught.

1. We are going down to bare wood. First, neither of us like the look of a house where just the loose paint has been taken off. Second, we have massive, massive paint failure on the entire house.
See that? Yuck. We have the alligatoring too. And the blistering.

2. Okay, so that first one wasn't really a step in the painting process, more of a decision we have made. That decision, however, leads us to method: how we are going to scrape the house. The methods most people use are: dry scraping, dry sanding, the Paint Shaver (or similar product) heat (in the form of blowtorch, heat gun or Silent Paint Remover), chemical strippers or pressure washers. We are still debating this one. We bought a Silent Paint Remover, and while I think it will do wonders on the interior trim, I have my doubts about the exterior. The Paint Shaver is really appealing, but I have heard stories of gouges and it is expensive (though we could probably resell it for close to its original value). I'll keep you posted. If anyone has any questions about why we are not considering any of the other options, leave a comment and I will let you know more.

3. Wash the house. Some say to use TSP (tri-sodium phosphate), others say bleach, and others say mild detergent. I am leaning toward a lean mixture of bleach and detergent. The TSP can be harmful to landscaping, and though I know the bleach water isn't great either, it will do the job of fighting mildew well even when diluted significantly. We are planning to borrow my parent's pressure washer to do this, and use it on a very gentle setting.

4. Repair any damage to the wood. This is a good time to announce that we are in fact ripping out the asbestos siding. We are going to be gentle and use all the proper precautions. However, this means that we will have nail holes. A lot of nail holes. There may also be some split wood if a nail was driven too close to an edge. We are crossing our fingers on this one. We also have to repair any rotted wood, which seems to be focused so far on the front side of the house. I will let you know which products we use for this later. Any suggestions?

5. Sand. We are using 80 grit to give the paint something to grip onto. We will be using my Makita random orbital, though rumor has it Kevin broke it.

6. Prime. Here is a HUGE point of contention among pros. Oil or Latex Primer? I wish I could link to the article in Fine Homebuilding that goes into great deal about primer, but we have a subsrcription, so it's not free. Anyway, the main point is, a good 100% acrilyc primer will flex with the wood and last longer. There is a chance of water-borne stains showing through, but they are easy to find and those can be sealed with oil based primer without compromising the felxibility of the latex. If you are a research nerd like us, it's worth it to have a subscription to the online archives of FH. Another interesting fact from the article is that you should go with the "sister" primer of the paint you choose. So, Behr paint = Behr primer, Valspar paint = Valspar primer, etc.

We are still not sure how we are appliying the primer/paint. If we rent a sprayer, we'll have it for months, and that can't be cheap. So that is up for debate.

7. Paint. Honestly, right now I am leaning toward Duramax by Valspar. If you had asked me yesterday, I would have said Duration by Sherwinn Williams, but (notice a theme) according to my research, Duramax is about the same quality-wise if not a little better, and much cheaper. Again, all this could change. An added benefit of not using Sherwinn Williams is that there was an incident involving Kevin's dad, Sherwinn Williams and the Twins in the World Series that is still very raw, in that we were told never to use Sherwinn Williams paint.

So, there you have it. I am sure this will all change, and I think I forgot the step about caulking, so I will be adding on to this as we go. I just needed to wrap my head around the scale of this project. Which leads me to the next post: our plan.