lifedoodling sketching between the lines of life

Home Improvement — The Beginning

When I embar­ked on the jour­ney that has become a mas­sive under­ta­king in remo­de­ling the outside of my house, I never rea­li­zed what that would mean to my family, my neigh­bors, my per­so­nal time, or my savings account. It star­ted as a sim­ple exer­cise of wan­ting to get rid of the 10 inch wide vinyl siding that had cove­red our 80 year old house for the last 40 years.

In doing that we dis­co­ve­red many won­der­ful and frigh­te­ning things. The first dis­co­very that the wood siding hiding under the mons­tro­sity of vinyl was mostly in good shape was exci­ting. This was follo­wed by the horri­fic dis­co­very that all of the win­dow and door trim had been des­tro­yed to accom­mo­date the siding.

A brief dis­cus­sion with my friend and brother in smoke(bbq) led to the dis­co­very that this could be repai­red or repla­ced enti­rely with his expert help. This in turn invol­ved a fun filled week of repla­cing the win­dow mol­dings and trim work to repre­sent what it most likely loo­ked like when it was built 80 years ago.

The work was just beg­ging there as we dis­co­ve­red asphalt shin­gles over asbes­tos shin­gles on the gables and side overhangs. This frigh­te­ning dis­co­very was quickly follo­wed by the even worse dis­co­very that the shin­gles were 4 and 5 layers deep with mul­ti­ple nails in every one. It was weeks to remove all of them as it was exhaus­ting work of the nature that I was not accus­to­med to performing.

Weeks and months later these shin­gles have been repla­ced with either siding or cedar shake stai­ned a beau­ti­ful red­wood color. The crac­king paint stri­ped, san­ded and repain­ted a beau­ti­ful gun metal grey with a bone white trim. Now as we approach the sides and attempt to com­plete the remo­val of the last remai­ning pie­ces to begin the pri­ming and pain­ting I look at it as a sign of hope to com­plete something prior to the end of this year lea­ving only the back to finish next year. Over the coming weeks look I will attempt to docu­ment the pro­gress we’ve made and docu­ment the trials we’ve encoun­te­red and what I’ve lear­ned through others or by my per­sis­tence that I will com­plete this Everest.

I have enjo­yed the work and hope that someone will bene­fit from my expe­rien­ces in their own attempts at taking on the impossible.