Now that we are back in town, we are quickly realizing that the days are getting shorter and this awesome summer will soon come to an end. and we still have a lot to check off our lists as far as outdoor projects go. Would be outside painting right now but both the little ones are napping and not sure if one baby monitor will pick up both of them. I did make a quick trip outside to do a few minutes of sanding on the garage and slapped some primer on the places I sanded. I think I can sneak out one more time to put the first coat of green over that primer since it should be dry soon. Just no time to start the whole second coat of paint.
Over the weekend, Steve finished all the little touch ups on the back of the house and then I did the first coat of green Saturday morning (completing the last strokes just as the sun went up over head and painting needed to stop) and the second Sunday morning. Also got super motivated and decided that it was high time to put some green paint up on the south side of our garage (if you recall from the spring, Steve removed all the old yellow paint and primed it). This is the part of our garage we never see as it basically comes up to the neighbor's driveway and planter bed. Sorry, neighbors, we love you and apologize for being such slackers and this taking so long. Just sort of put it out of our minds and left you with some ugly.
After First coat:
All finished with the exception of some trim painting, fixing some paint on the back door and updating/fixing the electrical switch for the back deck light
guess we might want to put the dog door back together now
wow does the deck stick out like a dangerous eye sore
And some pix of the garage with boards in place to glue a couple pieces of the lap board siding back together and with the first coat of paint up
the bottom wood rotted as soil was pushed up against it. we obviously moved the soil away but still need to figure out a way to keep the soil away from now on
And the project Steve started, or began again, after a 4 year siesta....stripping the paint from the front and rear rafters and painting them. We don't think there will be time to start the back of the boards (which are virtually unseen), but Steve at least hopes to get the front visible portions complete before fall (and RAIN) officially begins. This project is no fun, hence the four year siesta. Four years? Four summers ago (our first summer in our home as we got the keys Sept 1, 2006) we spent the ENTIRE summer stripping all the paint off the lap board siding of the house and hand nailing all new shingles as the old ones had rotted under the aluminum siding. At some point I will try to post more pictures of our process to remove the aluminum siding, strip paint and hang shingles.
And Ben on Saturday morning...because I like him and he makes me happy :)
Saturday was a productive day as the weather gods were kind to us (As they were not to most of the east coast and we have had you all in our thoughts) as it never got too hot to be outside. In attempt to once again avoid sanding and working on the house siding (I was also on Ben watch), Ben and I turned to the north side of our house which is just a mess of a forest. Anyways, we pulled out most of the weeds and then Steve finished up later. He also took out an old tree stump while he was at it.
Late in the afternoon, Steve talked me into a quick trip to wood waste management to picked up a 1/2 yard of hemlock mulch (we like the dark color and especially like that it is splinter free) in exchange for happy hour at McMennamins Kennedy School. Steve went to town spreading mulch as soon as I got home. We like the results! What a difference about 45 minutes of work does. We still need to figure out if we want to keep all the used bricks (from our chimney and a past dumpster diving trip)...I am opting to let them go (at least most of them) in attempt to clean out the casa. Long term we plan to extend the back yard gate further out in the side yard.
Saturday I also patched and glued the rest (or so I thought) of the siding on the back of the house.
Sunday morning we sanded a ton and then Steve found a bunch of spots that I forgot to glue (oops). We decided to not finish gluing and instead prime the wood...well, we got halfway through priming and we hope to finish up the priming during evenings this week.
and I'm behind and quickly forgetting what I did when so hopefully I will get caught up. The hardest days to blog (they all seem hard with a million house project and a little one running around) are Monday and Tuesday because I have two kiddos under my wing (although I often get in some hard core blog time during naps). So really those are probably the easiest days for me to blog.
Let's try this again. The hardest days are actually Wednesday (yesterday) and Thursday (today). Have you all heard that obnoxious song about how After Wednesday comes Thursday-cracks me up BUT at least I have a song to refer to when I forget the song about the days of the week that I learned in preschool. or wait, didn't I also learn it in Spanish class (can hear it now... lunes, martes...)?
anyways, terrible but cracks me up at the same time.
Soooo, because Wednesday comes first, that is where I will begin.
But back up to Tuesday as Steve also worked more on sanding on Tuesday night while I sorta putzed around outside trying to come up with excuses as to why I could not part-take in helping to fix the siding or sand. I ended up hanging up the little $.50 yard art that I bought at that garage sale last weekend and also glued some more boards together.
sorta cheesy but better than the deteriorating fence
OK, so on Wednesday (drum roll please) we did absolutely nothing. Except share some delicious homemade lasagna and a bottle of vino. How fantastic. Steve's bro had to cancel our hoard fest so we just cancelled work all together for the evening.
Ben beating the heat Weds night
Thursday: I put in my time hunting for the perfect little adornment for our stark and plain bathroom wall. I went to quite a few local thrift shops including lounge lizard, a 60s/70s shop on 20th-ish & hawthorne, ReRun on 7th and Fremont and Seek the Unique on SE 6th & Taylor. It's right near Rejuvenation. Also went to a cool little Store on ne 33rd-ish & hawthorne and bought some sweet kid's metal folding chairs. I will need to post a pic soon as they are in the car and need to come into their new home. They were a screaming deal on sale for $5 a piece, marked down from $10. These things could withstand a nuclear bomb they are so sturdy. Ben is still a little small for them but can't wait to put them by an equally cool (and sturdy) little table someday.
Here are a couple cool finds (did not purchase) at Seek the Unique. I forgot to take pix in the rest of the stores-got too excited at the prospect of shopping without little man by my side.
lure the spirits?
jewelry? bills?
and Thursday night I blogged and tidied the house while Steve did some more sanding outside. He hopes to have the back all primed and ready for some Green paint by Saturday evening.
doesn't look too different from last week but we promise that it is gettin' there
Sat am we walked to breakfast at Bumblekiss on Fremont and sat on their patio and enjoyed a yummy breakfast with perfect weather. On the way home, I picked up this ~14"x14" decorative grate for $.50 at a garage sale we happened upon and plan to nail it up on our backyard fence sometime soon-that fence is hideous so can use any help.
Steve and I spent a couple hours working on the back of the house. The lapboard siding paint has flaked horribly-we think it is do to the wood sitting for several months without being painted (we stripped the paint 4 years ago in the spring but did not get it painted until early fall) and getting tons of sun and heat during the long summer days. The shingles part of the siding is just fine. We are trying to re-prep it for a new coat of paint by the end of the summer. We also used flat paint on the siding which is probably contributing to the demise of it.
Steve stripped (with a heat gun). scraped the paint with a 4" scraper and sanded (combo of 60 grit paper and orbital sander) the chipping paint while I glued back together some of the boards that have splintered badly.
The splintered boards were previously covered be a HUGE (and that is an understatement) deck built by the previous home owners that stretched the width of the house and covered 2/3 of the backyard, making a less of 10' area of useable ground. We hated it being that a. it was ugle b. it was up high so you felt like you were on a perch and anyone walking on the street behind could see you c. we had virtually no grass d. it was ugly. I digress. Steve uncovered the lowest two boards a couple years back in a frantic rage of needed to deconstruct something mindlessly. While this can be good and has led to our awesome brick patio, it has left ugly siding and a truly hideous deck. Anyways, hoping to have the siding prettier by the end of the summer.
For gluing, I used a very scientific method to get out the slightly hardened (yet new unopened bottle) of Gorilla glue, the I wet the wood I wanted to glue per the directions, squeezed glue onto nail using scientific method and smeared on wood. The we pushed wood together by either nailing below using a finish nail (easy to go back and patch as most areas glued would not accept a clamp) or clamped the wood. Last I scraped off the extra glue using some old cardboard and then we waited for the magic to happen.
used a dental pic (from the Hoard which Steve's dad used for model planes) to take out any extra paint flakes in the cracks; monitor is vital as the babe was sleeping and we were takin advantage of the precious time sans babe
think it needs help? Think there used to be stairs here?
scientific method
spreading glue-this is actually time consuming
removing extra glue to cut down on sanding
There is still quite a bit of sanding that needs to get done and I need to glue the other side (to the left of our back door) of the siding
So Steve and I spent part of our weekend shopping for rocks-never realized just how many different shapes of rocks there are at a small little rock quarry just outside of Portland. Anyways, we settled on Columbia River Boulders from Heritage Rock. After purchasing 3/4 of a ton of rock (super cheap), we hauled it home in the trusty rig and then I dashed off to a girlfriend's birthday while Steve took it upon himself to unload the mother rocks on his own and try to "roll" them to their resting spots...after unloading the lighter weight ones (several hundred pounds each), Steve went for the 500-600 lb. mother and finally had a neighbor come offer to help (or more like the neighbor's wife offered her husband's help) when he almost had it in place and they got it in. Anyways, we spent part of Saturday placing and planting the rocks=burying the rocks....they look awesome and really light up the yard. 7 were from the rock yard and another 4 we dug up in our yard.
our mother rock (wooly thyme in foreground which we want to grow so it looks like sod)
Sunday brought the start of lap board siding (we had hung the Tyvek the previous week) which is not a treat to say the least being that the siding is not ridiculously difficult to put up but the corner 1x1" pieces threw us for a ride...we got a small front section done before Steve about crashed. We spent the remainder of the day shopping for grasses...we chose Hamelin fountain grass because the grass that Ryan chose is not sold in Oregon. It really resembles the deer grass Ryan initially chose. When we got home I took a little rest while Steve dug 19 holes for various plants and our house is really starting to look more complete. We can't wait to have the siding done so that we can get the plants in close to the house!
a sorry attempt at a full landscape shot.... but can you tell how the rock blends nicely with the quartzite path?
Here are a few pictures of our home before we started the outside renovation 2 years ago, it's still not finished but it's getting close-we hope to fix the porch stairs and finish some shingle and detail work this summer. Also, my brother (who is a landscape architect in Los Angeles-score!) will be coming ini June to design our front yard scape!
Pictures include: 1. House Prior to move-in-note aluminum siding (Fall 2006) 2. Removing aluminum siding-gotta love all those lead paint chips falling (Summer 2007) 3.Stripping paint off of side board and prepping to remove all shingles and replace-we completed all of the paint stripping, shingle replacement and prep and then hired the painters 4. back of house before shingle work began 5. Just before paint began, notice crumbling chimney, new side board where we adjusted height of window and new shingles that we hand nailed....me not so happy after spending most of our summer evenings doing work (October 2007)
