Home for the Holidays

We will have a finished exterior in time for the holiday season.  Phew!  The job was actually wrapped up, for the most part, two weeks ago.  The windows need to be painted and the wood must be stained.  However, now that very cold (and rarely dry) weather has set in, the window of opportunity for that has passed.  The painting and staining will have to wait until spring.  Staining should be OK in a few months since the wood is treated.

One of the guys (Johnny) had to stop working a week before the project was done.  He had back issues -- bad enough to require surgery.  So he's getting a cooked meal or two sent his way each week until he's back on his feet.  We look after our guys!

The boys did a marvelous job.  It was necessary to deviate from the plans a little in order to keep the budget over-run in check.  We are very pleased with the new look.  It would have been possible to save money and stick closer to the budget if we didn't have a new porch and gate built.  However, we wanted the whole look and it made sense to do it all at once.  The front garden is bigger than planned because the final configuration made it possible to re-use the block from the previous garden.  If we'd stuck to the original design for both the porch and garden, the hit would have been at least three thousand dollars more than planned.

The budget was exceeded  by about ten thousand dollars.  The custom fence and new porch cost around six.  Most of the over-spend had to do with unpleasant discoveries along the way.  All were issues that needed to be addressed.  The end result is that a very old home now looks like a new build.  Preservationist might have balked at that, but previous owners made it impossible to restore.

We are happy with the colorful farm-house look.  It's different from any house for miles.  People who pass by compliment it, and in addition to looking good, the energy efficiency is already a vast improvement.  Please let us know what you think of the new look!