Got Off Track Here! Shuttered Up

Wow... things got BUSY.... 

and now summer is over.  

The last few weeks I haven't been posting any blogs.
 
We hid out in the house with the central air on the hot humid days.
We have had visitors, and we have been visitors. 
We have babysat grandkids and spent time with parents.
We didn't get in ANY camping. Sigh. We were going to go this upcoming weekend, but plans changed with a health issue cropping up with some friends.

I can write about each of those to catch up in the next few days, and finish up my 3rd post about the things we changed in the house after buying my new chair.



But we DID do an "Our Old House" Project I can write about.

It's been such a hot and humid summer, that we really didn't work on any projects around the outside of our old house.  We wanted to, but the weather hasn't been cooperating.

The previous owners had put on vinyl siding which is rather plain and beige.  It's nice to have no maintenance, but even the aluminum wrap around the windows was also rather plain.  NO character.

See?

(we did add window boxes this past spring)

Finally, the humidity dropped, the weather was nice, and we dug around in the attic of the garage.  The previous owners had left behind a bunch of lumber and scrap wood up there.  There were a bunch of nice big long 1x10 planks that were in perfect condition.  I had a plan in mind---- and Steve agreed!

We hauled down the boards and I had made up a cut list after Steve helped measure six of the windows on our house. Steve choice was the six windows people can see from the road.  More on THAT later....

Using a template made from the cutout shape of the lattice fretwork under our front porch, we made up a design for our new shutters!  Steve also came up with the idea of a 2 inch block of blue on the top and bottom margins, and they also match with the trim blocks we painted on the front of the house earlier this spring.

He gave his nod of approval on the first cut out. 

Steve started cutting, I did the sanding, and soon I was able to coat each board with 2 coats of paint.  We added the blue blocks on each shutter to dress them up.

Soon the shutters were ready to hang!  We completed the six windows that Steve had decided that needed to be done.  That covered mostly the front, south side and two windows on the north side. 

We mounted them to the vinyl siding with little spacer blocks so they do not press down or impede on the vinyl siding.  The vinyl needs to contract or expand with the weather, so only attaching the shutters with two long screws and not tight to the vinyl was the best solution. I painted the heads of the screws so they didn't show too much.

Someone asked me why did we go to all the work to build our own shutters?  Why not just buy some and put them up?  Well, first of all, those would be just average vinyl shutters like everyone else has.... and second of all, at a cost of about $45 a window, times 6 windows... ack... $270.00???  Well, this wood was FREE and it was only our hard work to make them and put them up ourselves.

We were lucky with the upper windows, we could install them from inside of the house, by leaning out to mount the shutter on the outside.  Our old house windows still slide down from the top or up from the bottom.  Because they are still original wood and not painted shut.  Yes!

We got all six windows done and it sure looked nice.  Steve was satisfied with just doing the six windows that were visible from the road. While installing the 6 sets, we had a few neighbors stop and admire them, and even one lady whom I didn't even know stopped to comment about our window boxes as well.

I wanted all 14 windows to have shutters, so the house looked "complete".  Even Pops Pfundtner weighed in on the idea of all the windows needed shutters to look nice. 

(little did Steve know that the following weekend we would be buying MORE planks and making enough shutters to finish ALL the windows ALL the way around the house!)   But that wood was on sale for only $58.00.

We got them all cut out and sanded and painted in one morning. The weather was cooperating and we got 8 more pairs for the windows all ready.

We ran into one snag, we had to move a rain gutter downspout, so Steve had to borrow the neighbor's ladder to get up that high. I held it from below and had the phone ready to call 911 if he fell. We were hoping to do them all from inside the second story and avoid the ladder completely.  

I think we are getting too old for ladders! 

Soon the house was complete!  Ahhhh I think it's a little cutesy, but Steve agreed that it really dressed up the house from the plain beige vinyl. 

Here is the backside of the house, where we usually enter from. 

I am glad we put shutters on these windows too! 

They are the ones we see most often.

The north side of the house also has a big bay window.

I am going to add some little corbels under the overhang of the roof

around the bay window to dress that up later. 

This is the south side, the most boring big beige side. 

I am glad it's spiffied up now.  

This is the side we see each time we come up the driveway.

Here is the house from the last angle with the top shaker porch and side gate too.... I am really glad we went all the way around with the shutters. Steve agrees now that it looks better. It was worth it.

Hmmm I wonder how he feels about shutters on the windows of the garage? 

~~~~~~~~~

I will have some future blogs about changing the muffler on the motorhome. Steve just got it in the mail today from FedEX and the dogs were so excited to get some big boxes from the mailman. 

I will be posting about our camphosting at High Cliff State Park coming on Oct. 1st. And the big Halloween Celebration that is held there, this year it's the first weekend in October.

I will be posting about the quilt I have on the frame today. I started stitching some pretty hooks and swirls.  I think it will be kinda cute once I finish it.

Here is the stitching 

and here is the quilt top 

laid on the queen bed in our guest room.

I will be posting about our trip coming up in later October and into November to visit friends in Tennessee and then on to the folks in Florida.

I hope to just keep on posting!  

Gotta get on track! 

Boxing The Flowers and HOT HOT HOT

When we viewed our house to purchase it back in 2012, we noticed odds and ends of scrap wood up in the attic of the garage. We asked the sellers if they wouldn't mind leaving it there because some of it might be usable in the future. It's funny, because five and a half years later they said they didn't know half of the things left in that attic and they really didn't want to go through it anyhow!! Lol!

Steve had it in his mind to build some window boxes to dress up the front and the south side of the house. We kinda looked at picking up some wood at Menards but that would mean going out in the heat, hooking up the trailer, and driving 30 miles to get wood. Instead, we shopped in our own attic of our own garage! Recycling at it's finest.

Just look at that up there, should be something we could use to build window boxes with, you would think?

Sure enough, Steve found some interesting pieces of wood that would work. They actually had little grooves cut along the edges, known as "shiplap". If anybody watches the show on HGTV Fixer Upper, this is the stuff that Joanna absolutely loves!

Well, this wasn't going on the walls, this is going into making the window boxes.

Steve carefully measured and cut and got all of the pieces ready yesterday afternoon. It was way too hot to do any more work out in the garage as the temps were climbing.  But he had a plan in mind.

This morning he decided to get out there early and do what he could to get these put together. We started about 6:30 a.m. Before the temps climbed up the thermometer.  It was humid, but still in the 70's so we could work out there in the shade.

Just look at that guy. You know, on the PBS TV show The Red Green Show, he says if your woman can't find you handsome, she might as well find you handy!

Well, I think Steve is BOTH handsome and handy!!!

We started to work on the boxes with the garage door open for fresh air.  The mosquitos were biting, but not as bad as they were the evening before.  He had it already figured out what to do, and I was there to hold things and hand him tools, screws, the caulk gun or his coffee cup.  That's my job.

He carefully sealed all of the seams with a caulk adhesive before he put the boxes together. The front surface he nailed on with the air gun to hide the fasteners, but the rest of the box was constructed with heavy duty coated deck screws on the sides, back and bottom.

Although the garage was getting warmer, I held the pieces while he assembled the boxes.
I'm not good with heat nor humidity so I could tell the morning was really going to be rough as the temperature kept increasing into the 80s.

Soon, the Construction Master took a break and supervised me from his lawn chair. I got out my brush, roller, tray and can of blue trim solid colored stain for the front and sides of the box. I rolled two coats quickly and went back in the house to cool off in between coats.

Steve helped me flip them over on the saw horses and then I could coat the bottoms and the back sides and the insides with a special rubbery paint for wet basements called Dry Lock to preserve the wood on the inside.

Steve will drill the drainage holes on the bottom and add screening over the holes, once we are sure where the brackets are going to be located that hold them up to the house.  We will have to measure for the studs first and then center the boxes.

We were done by mid morning and we escaped back into the house into the cool central air conditioning. The temps were climbing and climbing outside. We had planned to go to my friend Connie's birthday party in in Oshkosh for noon. But there is no way I could deal with that heat and humidity for an outdoor party for the afternoon. So we gave her a call and said we would stay home today and get together on another day to celebrate her birthday.  Sorry Connie----

THIS is what our afternoon was like:

Once it cools down next week, we get the window boxes mounted, I'm still debating what I want to plant inside of them. I am thinking it would be nice to do just blue and white petunias. But then I thought just all over crazy colors of just about every flower--- because I planted all different colors of gerbera daisies down below by the Dutch Boy and Girl? Or I could put in red geraniums and ivy like I have in the pots on the front stoop.

I know the bottom couple inches will be shredded up styrofoam and packing peanuts so they can drain but not be as heavy as pea gravel. Then I am going to use some of that lightweight Moisture Control potting soil meant to retain the water designed for window boxes and hanging baskets.

Playing with Photoshop, I drew a blue box on both the front and the side of the house where the window boxes will go. I also drew some blue trim that I want to add to the soffits and eaves.  Also with Photoshop I did a copy and paste of the design of the fretwork cutouts underneath our front porch. Then I pasted them as shutters up on each side of the windows to see what that looks like.

I cut and pasted shutters 

just to see what they would look like

Steve seems to think that's a really good way to dress up the house as well. So we might be cutting out shutters in the next couple weeks. Stay tuned!

~~~~~~~~~

Even though we were inside the house and it's relatively cool, I didn't want to heat it up with cooking anything for supper. Who does?

Even in our small town of Chilton, we are lucky to have a little Chinese restaurant called King Wok. I called up and ordered our favorite meals to share and Steve ran over to pick them up. Easy peasy supper.

I am pleased to say that the modification that Steve made to our ductwork has been working out tremendously great!  (I wrote about it in the last blog)  We now finally have cool air reaching the second story and the house feels drier and less humid as well.  It is comfortable sleeping in our master bedroom, and the whole second story is only about 2 degrees warmer (74) than the first floor (72). Before his adaptation, it ran 10 to 15 degrees hotter up there, even with the central air running.  So the in duct supplementary fan is really making a difference. 

Although, in my sewing room if I have the iron on, it gets a bit warmer.  So he did put the window air conditioner in there for me. It's only hanging out on the north side, not in the hot sun, so it doesn't have to work so hard to cool things down.  I don't care for the look of window air conditioners hanging out on the house, but this is far back on the north side out of view.  It really helps! 

 So I hid out here for a couple hours this afternoon,
 and then we took a nap!

If the weather man is correct,
tomorrow is going to be
just as miserable as today.

I think I'm just going to stay upstairs and keep working on my quilt!!!