No, it isn't done yet!

Last week Dan got some help with the siding. Mike and Marty, who are siding experts, came and worked with Dan. A lot of progress was made!

The side of the garage, with the new door Mike (my Mike) painted green (my favorite color!)

This is the cedar board that will go on the back of the garage for my pergola.

I put the sealer on it.

Wrapping around to the back of the house.

The next day the back of the garage was done, with my sealed, cedar board in place.

The bow window, with the air exchanger vents, and my new dryer vent!

And the front! Wow, it looks like a different house!

Another view of the front.

One day last week (I can't remember which day now) the rest of the new windows arrived.

And all 5 were installed that same day! Not so much rotten wood on that side of the house.

After that day of progress, it came to a screeching halt.

They ran out of siding.

In the meantime we started working on the inside of the house.

I made 2 trips on Friday to get the stain for the inside of the windows.

So Friday night, Mike started staining the kitchen window.

It took a long time. On Saturday, he did the front window in our bedroom. That also took a long time. After that he had his method down and things went a little quicker. He got all the windows in the house stained except the bow window and the sliding door.

On Sunday it looked like rain, and it did rain briefly. You can't really work on windows when it is raining, so Mike painted the living room ceiling.

Ladders anyone?

My friend, Julie came over on Sunday and helped Mike and I plan out the concrete for the back of the house. She came over one night last week and helped us figure out the concrete for the front of the house. We are now ready for concrete!

Tonight when Mike got home he put a coat of sanding sealer on one window. Then we ran to Menards and bought brushes, tack cloth and polyurethane for the windows. Maybe tomorrow night he will get the first coat of poly on the first window!

This is going to take some time...

Warm Welcome!

Warm Welcome is the color of the siding that
has finally started to go up!



Dan had some siding people here to help him today so a lot of progress was made.



It looks like a totally different house to me now. The siding is not as wide as the old stuff which changes the whole look.




Tomorrow they will finish the front and start working there way around the side of the garage.

Yipee!

First week in August

Yesterday, I took Charlie to All State Orchestra Camp at St. Benedict's College in St. Joseph, MN. Here he is, happy to pose by the sign. He will be there until Saturday, when we go back to get him and here the concert that they all work on during this week. I think 6 students were chosen to try out for All State from the Prior Lake School District. Charlie made All State Orchestra, and 2 others made All State Band, which is held at UMD.

When I got home my new front door was in!

I like my new door!

Today, Tuesday, the heating/air conditioning guys finally came!

You can see the natural gas line they ran that will eventually hook up to the grill, and the hoods they put on the air exchanger intake and output.

But this was the most exciting thing of all - my new DRYER VENT! No more going outside and wedging the board in to hold the flap up so SOME of the yucky dryer air went outside. Yipee!

After they were done Dan built the wall around the bottom of the bow window.

He also started working on the area around the bow window inside the house, with sheet rock, tape, and mud.

He went up to the spot where we've had some sort of leak on our living room ceiling, and he scraped some of the bad stuff off.

Here is some of the remnants left behind.

Over the weekend the electrician came and got all of our light spots re-done. Here is one of the lights that we picked for the front of the house, hanging so we could see how it looks. It will come down again now, until the siding is up, maybe later this week?

And then, the post issue is finally resolved! Thanks to all who put in their 2 cents on Facebook where I posed the question, "Square or round?" Also a big thanks to Julie, who is the end all, be all, of designing decisions that we make. Mike trusts her judgement, and she said square, so square it is.

2 views, because I like this sooooo much!

The plan is that tomorrow the little roof thing will be finished, and some more sheet rock/mud work will happen inside. And then on Thursday, there may be extra helpers here to actually hang some siding! We shall hold our breath, and see what happens!

A couple small things...

On Friday not a whole lot happened. The side garage door got put in, but I forgot to take a picture of that, so just sit for a minute and imagine it...yup, you've got it right.

The plumber came and took the old, leaky, back faucet out, here is the remaining hole,

and then he put a new, shiny, not leaky, faucet in!

And he moved it up, so it isn't so hard to hook a hose to anymore.

And now, the unveiling of the front step!!

Here it is after one coat of the sealant -

it will get another coat when the rest of the concrete goes in, probably a couple weeks from now.

As I said before, the concrete was brown, or chocolate, if you prefer. And then the glaze is a reddish color, since our new front door is red, but not bright red like the door we have now. I think that step looks a little bit better now than it did when it was "dusty rose" color.

Hopefully this week we will have some siding going up!

Stayed tuned.