Siding and Paint: Before, During and After

So in case you missed it, the siding on our house is weird. Diagonal siding...popular in the 70's/80's, and should have stayed there/been banned. Neal and I felt like it was the #1 factor in making the house look out-dated. "Cute" is not a word you would use to describe it (unless it was 1979). Just so you don't miss it, here is a visual reminder:

Mmmmmm, yes, such a rare specimen of '80s goodness or badness, depending how you look at it. Poor house. Needs a facelift. So we gave it one:

 This is the "belly band". Also, notice the two new windows replacing the "trapezoidal" (read: embarrassing) one. Actually, those aren't the finished windows. Stay tuned for the picture windows, not sliders.

 In process

 Literally, he's unstoppable. It was pouring, he had worked all day, he won't stop. 

 We decided "board and batten" would give some good texture and depth and break up some of the big walls.

 The last of the sad vertical siding about to be covered up.

The siding is finished. The "yellow" is the primer that protects the siding in case you're a normal person and wait a bit to paint. That word doesn't exist in his vocabulary. Neal was a bit appalled that I bought 7 tester paints. I reminded him of all the times he'd had to repaint certain rooms a number of times in our old house thanks to my lack of paint-picking skills. We narrowed it down, and down, tested a few more, and landed...

Right here: 

 Notice the sliding windows got replaced with picture windows. Less visually distracting.

 That thing to the left of the garage is the beginning of a little fence that will hide the garbage cans.

This color is warm, calming, comforting. The paint is Sherwin Williams "Gauntlet Grey" (darker), "Mindful Grey" (lighter), and Shoji White as the trim. We're both really happy with it. Again, I'm amazed with Neal's ability and his drive. He started siding a week ago. I'm thrilled with the transformation.

THE deck.

I feel bad calling it a "front butt", but that was the nickname it got while we had it. The front deck on our house was so big that it would have added over 200 sq feet to the house had it been part of the interior. The problem was, like most things with this house, it was weird and ugly.

It "dwarfed" the front door. It "confused" the entry to the house. It jutted out right to the edge of the driveway. At first I thought it would be a great place to play, eat dinner in the summer, etc. but the longer we lived here the more we realized how bad this deck actually was. 

It took us a long time to figure out what the best plan was. (Interpretation: it took us about two weeks, which in Mitchell-time was long). Ooh, notice the lattice in this picture. Finally, Neal did have to rip that off, he hated it too much. 

So, with a rough sketch in hand, Neal whipped out the chain saw and saws-al. Bye-bye deck.

Two little cuties.

Though I was kind of nervous to lose that square footage, when I saw Neal get more and more "into" the design we created, I just trusted his vision and skill for what we had decided. A "porch" we thought would be better. It would highlight the entry of the house better, and make more sense. We'd have a little room between the driveway and porch/front door for some landscaping, and we decided some big built-in planters would cover the open, dead space underneath.

We laid a path, build stairs and handrails.

I have a pink tool belt. I'm very proud of it. I was tempted to wear it in normal life because it would be so handy. I'd never lose my wallet, keys, gum, sunglasses, snack for the kids, extra diaper and wipes.

Ooh, so hard at work. 

The base-layer of the planters are built.

BUT, there's an awkward sliding glass door to the left; part of what made it a confusing entry. 

Now you see it...

now there's a gaping hole in the house...

and two little cuties.

The window makes much more sense both on the exterior design, but also for what's going to happen on the interior in that space (more to come eventually!).

Much better. Then Neal could finish the handrail on that side. We had to patch it together with random siding found in the garage.

From this:

To this:

To this, with stone on the build-in planters. 

My favorite thing so far

This small, awful bathroom is in the hall. It's the kids' bathroom as well as the bathroom people use when they visit. 

 And voila, I'm in love with this bathroom:

towels from Anthropologie.

Carrera marble top, school-house lights (nice job Home Depot!)

"train rack" towel bar/shelf (Home Deeps again)

We installed heated tile floors, and this bathroom is all I hoped it would be. I love it.

The sort of boring, but necessary jobs.

It looked like we were growing a garden on our roof. Except we weren't. It was just the roof.

I'm so thankful for our roof. When Neal and friends started to replace it, it looked fairly good except for the patch right above our bed. I'm glad we replaced it. Neal was super smart too, and added overhangs along the sides. I think it made a huge difference. Less 70's more 2000's. 

Look at those flat sides.

Notice the new overhangs. Much better.

The other boring, but necessary, job was we (which means Neal) re-insulated the crawl space. Booooring.