Up On A Roof or Down In The Basement

Steve was Up On A Roof (I hear James Taylor singing in my head). He went up to do some tuck pointing around a few bricks, and fill in a gap where one was missing.  Since we had the chimney height reduced last year,  he has been wanting to get up there and fix that last gap.  The chimney is blocked off and not used for anything, so it's just basically for decoration. Someday, if we ever were to redo the roof with metal,  we would probably take it down completely.

The chimney is pretty ugly. Originally, I had been thinking that since the bricks don't match in color, it would be nice to just paint over each brick surface with my red paint on a roller and make everything match. But once he got up there he said the lower darker red bricks are much rougher and will be harder to paint, compared to the lighter bricks above. 

So instead, he is going to parge over the entire surface with masonry cement and paint the whole chimney solid red. It's going to warm up later this afternoon so he will work on it then. For now, he took care of wire brushing down any loose spots and dirt. He gave it a light scrubbing with a degreaser and he will let that dry.

While he was up on a roof, I was down in the basement. Well, almost. I gave a fresh coat of paint to the bulkhead doors that lead to the basement in the newer half of the house. They had gotten slobbered up when Steve was painting some of the white trim and siding up above, especially the soffits--- he got some drips that landed down on the bulkhead. So it needed a new fresh coat of my red paint anyhow.

I never wanted the bulkhead in the first place. 

That's the whole reason why I got the bedroom window!

See, we made a deal. Last year Steve wanted to rip down the regular shed type entrance to the basement that had an upright door and a roof, etc  I thought it was fine the way it was.  

Here is the blog post about that process:  and-walls-came-tumbling-down   I didn't like the idea of the bulkhead cuz you have to lean over, open up the slanted doors and walk down into it like going into a bomb shelter! LOL. So if he wanted to put on these bulkhead doors, the deal was then the space left over on the wall I could have the big window in the bedroom. So he got what he wanted and I got what I wanted --- and it's finally done! 

Well, almost.

This morning, right before we were making breakfast together, he took out his ladder and the two red shutters that I had already painted for the bedroom window.

While I was watching him, I was standing on the patio looking at the surface and texture of the new siding we had put up. This isn't plain old vinyl siding. It's called LP Smart Siding and it has a beautiful texture embossed into the wood strips. It's put on a strip at a time just like regular old wood siding but it lasts a lot longer. I like it so much better than vinyl siding. I like looking at the natural texture of it where it looks like it could be real wood.

Anyhow, back to Steve. 

Zip Zip Zip in no time flat he had both of the shutters mounted on each side of the bedroom window.

Now we just need one more set for the bathroom window. They will be 74 inches tall and not as common as the shorter ones. I have been watching the ReStore shutter bin for a number of months, and haven't seen any that tall. 

Here is the East side and back yard that we did this year. New siding, new windows all around and the screen door, along with the patio stones and rain chain. We fixed and painted the foundation surface too. The bulkhead doors are the same color as the shutters and picnic table, just the angle and light make them appear brighter.

We didn't find any shutters on our last stop at the ReStore in Marinette. But he is going to Green Bay today with the neighbor to do some other shopping. He will stop and look at the ReStore in Green Bay. But if they don't have them he might just bite the bullet and pick up a full price set at Home Depot! Can you imagine that? Paying full price? At the ReStore we usually find them for $5 each. At Home Depot it'll cost about $60 or $70!

Okay, back down into the basement for me. I had a few more bunches of my coleus that I had dug up in the yard and some that I had rooting in glass jars in the window in the kitchen. Time to get them planted for the winters retreat in the safety of the basement. I keep enough plants growing all winter in the south-facing windows. In the Spring, when the danger of frost has passed, I am able to transplant them outside again

This year, Steve made it easier for me to water the flowers in the basement. I used to have to carry buckets of water down from the kitchen each and every week, all winter long. Hauling buckets of water from the kitchen, through the She Shed, through the side door, outside through the snow, then lean over and lift up and go down through his dang bulkhead doors, down the steps and into the basement. Now, it's so much easier because he added a laundry sink to the basement. Not only is it good for watering my plants, but it's right there for washing out paint brushes and roller pans and even to bathe the dog.

I have some painting of the trim to do to finish out the inside of the bedroom window. Also the big wide old original mop boards can be put back into place.  We are recreating the top crown and egg and dart trim for the top of the new window, as well as the top of the new closet trim.  Then it will match the other window and both doorways. 

So that's it for our home improvements today. Like I said, Steve is off to Green Bay with the neighbor for a couple hours. I will finish up this blog and get my own stuff done.  I might get in a couple hours of quilting or weaving.

This evening we're babysitting three of the grandkids so I have a list made up of fun stuff to do after we pick them up from school.

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!