Remodeling Our Hut Part 31: Painting and Siding

As soon as we had the plywood on the lean-to addition, our next job was painting the interior of the house.   When we went to the paint store, the clerk was very helpful, but I'm sure he found us boring.  Though it will seem too bland to almost everyone but us, we went with only three very light colors, 'Dover White' for the downstairs walls, 'Hyacinth' for the upstairs and 'Extra White' for the ceilings.  We're not very adventurous, but hey, it's three shades of white instead of only one.

The employee of the paint store did some calculations and we ended up with what looked like a ridiculous amount of paint in five gallon pails and a bunch of gallons.  We were lucky it all fit in the old Buick's trunk and back seat.   We avoided any fast moves (or stops) while hauling it home. 

We had less than a week to get the painting done as the flooring contractor was scheduled to begin very soon.  I looked into renting a paint sprayer but had no luck finding one.  Though the hut is not huge, it was a rather daunting task to paint every room (and ceiling) in the house with plaster primer first, followed by two more coats of paint all in less than a week. Carl was not in favor of buying a sprayer at all, but after listening to me whine about how much time it was going to take us, he changed his mind and off we went to the big box store to buy one of our own.

Thank goodness we did, because painting is not my favorite thing.  Briana, Joel and I masked off all the windows in the house on Saturday in preparation.  Luckily for us, Joel volunteered to run the paint sprayer.

Sunday, November 3, Joel donned a mask to protect his lungs and set to work.

We had to cover all the hardwood flooring boxes and anything else we didn't want covered in overspray, too.

The sprayer (and Joel) was very much appreciated.  It certainly did cut down on the work.

Pictured above: Dining room/study bay windows.

Below:  Breakfast nook and kitchen

November 4, and the contractors are starting to install the ceiling on the front porch.

 While the contractors were working outside, I was working on painting once again, this time cutting in with the darker white paint in preparation for the finish coats later than week.

 Upstairs, south side, 'Hyacinth' walls, 'Extra White' ceiling

 Upstairs, north side.

 When I finally finished upstairs with the transition between the walls and ceiling, in the late afternoon, I moved downstairs.

 My feet didn't like standing on ladders for long stretches, but of course I was continually dropping stuff, so my back got a great workout in, too.

From my perch on the ladder in the bay windows, I could see the shadowy figures working on the porch ceiling.

By Tuesday, November 5, the porch ceiling was nearing completion.

And surprise, the next day, Wednesday, November 6, we had our first accumulating snow.  

We had the heating ducts cleaned because all of the plaster dust and demolition debris needed to be removed.

Carl and I finally got the rest of the old orange plywood flooring out of the downstairs hallway and began ripping out the bathroom floor next.

Once we were done with the hallway, the old blue bathroom was next.

Prying the floors up was a job we were both glad to be done with.

Carl thought we should paint the two finish coats of paint by hand instead of using the sprayer so we wouldn't have any overspray.  The two of us painted together after he got home from work and though we finished the first coat, we had a five gallon pail of paint left over.  And sad to say, we were exhausted. I especially did not feel like painting the house one more time,  so when Joel volunteered to man the paint sprayer gun again, I was thrilled.

    Carl followed Joel around with the cart and the pail of paint.  The following day we were able to clean the gun out and put the sprayer back in the box.  We'll be using the sprayer again in the spring on some outdoor projects.

On Friday, November 8, the shake siding came in for the back of the house, so the contractors were busy installing it while I worked on touching up the painted walls where the ceiling and wall meets.  I was on a ladder inside the house and they were outside.  Ah, fun, fun.

                                "Hi there, Mr. Contractor!"

The weather had turned very cold.  I was glad I wasn't up on a ladder outside.

 

 They made great progress and were able to finish the gable by noon.

Later on Friday, Carl and I went to work touching up the rest of odds and ends I'd missed.

We are still debating what type of railing to create for the staircase.  Working upstairs with no balcony railing is very dangerous, so I decided to get a piece of decorative grating to see if we would like the effect of iron or wood better.
  
  I grabbed one of our stained glass windows so we could enjoy it in the sunshine just for a few days and see how the glass lights up during the day.

Just before dark, I went outside to lock up the chickens for the night and look at the house from the back.

 The contractors also sided over the orange flooring plywood on the garage.  Cody had come and installed a new garage window earlier in the week.  We removed the smaller ten year old window which, after I cleaned it up, was a good replacement for the east window in our garage.

The contractors are going to replace the brown vent cover in the eaves with an off-white one when the order comes in, so they left the ladder standing in the meantime.

 We had hoped to be done with the house by Thanksgiving, but that was not possible.  There was (and still is) so much to do.

We won't be back home for Christmas, either, but that's ok.  


It saves me the work of putting up a Christmas tree.

Remodeling Our Hut Part 30: Garage Lean-to Addition

With the pillars done by October 23, and no time to spare before the first snowstorm, we had to jump into our next project; a lean-to addition to our existing garage. 

Carl started digging post holes for the pressure-treated beams which would be used for the back wall on October 24. 

Carl has been running in circles for months, working full-time, he tried to fit in as much work before dark as possible.  As usual, I stood around taking pictures.  

Yep, that's a hole alright.

The back of the house had yet to be sided as we were waiting for the order of shake siding to come in. The plans had originally called for shake only on the front of the house, but we opted for all four gables to be done the same way.  We're glad we did as we view the back of the house more than the front from the gardens.

When the original house roof was cut out for the new gable in July, I saved all the old rafters, pulled out the nails and stacked them up to use for the garage addition.  

 

 Such a mess, but a lot of those old boards did come in handy.

The weather was unseasonably cold in October but at least it didn't rain quite as much as it had all summer long.

While Carl was digging holes for the posts, I was busy tearing off the old garage siding.

I've ripped off and picked up my share of vinyl siding and tar paper this year, that's for sure.  And nails....sheesh, so many nails.

Our friend Cody was instrumental in building the lean-to.  He brought over a gas-powered post hole digger for the last of the posts.

Because the garage was higher off the ground now due to having a frost wall foundation, we were able to build out twelve feet for the addition and still have enough headroom to walk out of the doors.  We're going to park our lawnmower in the new addition and move storage of gasoline and other smelly stuff out of the main garage.

While Carl was at work during the week, I kept tearing off siding during the day. 

We needed to get the garage doors back on the front of the building too.  We cleaned up our old brown doors and painted them to match the off-white trim.

The garage doors are well over twenty-five years old, but with a little luck, they'll be fine for another twenty.  

While Carl was working on fixing up and painting the garage doors, on Saturday, October 26, Ann came over to help me finish taking the siding and aluminum soffit off. 

 

 We had an impressive pile of aluminum to take in for recycling, it didn't bring much, but it was worth it to keep it out of the dump.

 After dark, Ann and I had a nice long chat around the campfire.  It felt good to sit down and soak up some heat.

 Monday, October 28, Cody came over after work and started putting up rafters.  We had to order more tin for the roof but it came in much faster than the house tin did, thankfully.

 Saturday, November 2, the roof tin arrived and so did some frozen precipitation.   While Carl and Cody were putting the tin on, tiny ice pellets were bouncing off the roof in all directions.    

I had to dig my calla lily bulbs for storage and replant some daffodils that had been uprooted when we tore up the front flower beds.  While I was digging stuff out, Briana came over and helped me clean up the dead hosta leaves and foliage which was very much appreciated.  A little later on, Joel stopped in and hauled  loads of garden waste to the compost pile.  The snow/hail kept on for quite awhile, but despite the weather, we all kept going. 

 Sunday, November 3, and Carl and Cody had the plywood sheeting on the lean-to.  If that lovely orange vinyl 'siding' looks familiar, it should, since the plywood used to be in our kitchen, and yes, there's that familiar flooring one more time.  

Carl wasn't crazy about reusing the plywood.  

"I never want to see the orange vinyl again!" he said.

His negative attitude about the kitchen floor plywood kinda stumped me as he's usually the one who says we have to keep everything.  I told him it gives the garage an extra layer of protection from the elements, and besides it will be behind the vinyl siding so we won't have to look at it.  

 I told Carl to ignore the wall until the siding was done.

Since, in a surprising role reversal, it was my idea to reuse the glamorous orange vinyl plywood, I guess the old saying is true.

 

 'You get like the people you live with.'