House. Painted.

Well, the painters have gone, there's a hole in our savings account, and the various shades of brown on the house are just a memory. The new colors are Sherwin Williams "Jersey Cream" for the body and "Rosemary" for the trim. Here's the progress:

Day 1:



Day 2 - Scraped, spot primed, and test patched:



Day 3 - One coat of the body color is up:



Day 4 - There's another coat up, although it's hard to see:



Day 5 - Some of the trim is done now:



Day 6 - Mostly done, except for a few touch-ups:



The finished product - we have pretty new house numbers, although I do think Craig put them a little too far to the left. (We'll see how long it takes him to notice this comment.) We also have a new copper mailbox that matches the numbers, which will be installed a bit later:



Closeup of the trim color:



All in all, we're happy with the outcome, and happy with our decision to have someone else do most of the work. It was nice to have it go on while we were at work. So why am I so tired?

If the siding's done, this must be June

Sorry for being a Very Bad Girl about updating. The College of Human Ecology is closing on June 30, and all the work issues that have been percolating for the last year are coming to a head now. There are lots of rumors, negotiations, and stressful situations right now, and all I really want to do is go on vacation and drink margaritas. Hopefully things will improve in the next few months.

Anyway, all the work stress is one of the reasons we elected to have the house painted professionally in the first place, and I'm happy to report that they are there RIGHT NOW. This is very exciting. The house was all scraped and patched with primer last night, and it looked like they were starting on the first coat of paint this morning. We're taking pictures every day, and I'll post them when the job is done, so the Great De-Browning can be seen in its full majesty.

Anyway, here's a little photo tour of what we've been doing in the past few weeks. I want to take a moment to thank Craig's dad for all the help he's given us. An engineer's brain is an invaluable resource.

On Memorial Day weekend, Dan and Craig finished up the railing on the front step. It looks great, and is sturdy enough to support a klutz like me. It's now spray-painted a textured brown color - guess I'll have to get a picture of that, too.



Craig installed our new garbage disposal. Compared to the old one, which was installed in January 1979, it is an amazing piece of machinery. The first time I flipped the switch, I was afraid I might get sucked in.



The next weekend, Craig and Dan installed our fiber cement siding on the peak of the garage. We still have some trim to add on the edges, and it needs to be painted, but it's looking pretty good.

The backerboard was very helpful - it warns that it will smolder or burn if ignited. Come to think of it, I probably will smolder or burn if I'm ignited, too.









And in the meantime, things are growing. I'm beginning to worry that our front planter may actually be too shady for impatiens. I did not know such a thing was possible. This picture is a couple of weeks old, and the plants are nice and leafy now, but not blooming much. Time shall tell.



A crappy attempt at designing my own planters. Apparently there's a reason they sell those pre-made. I do like the tuberous begonias, though.



The vegetables seem to be growing well. Craig wishes I would just leave the tomatoes the hell alone, though. I think I may have pruned the growing end off of one of my Cherokee Purple plants, thinking it was a sucker. What can I say, I'm a novice. I hope it can recover somehow.



Stay tuned for painting pictures!