Now we
enter the home stretch for exterior house projects in 2013.
Three things define this time. It starts when the weather turns
cooler, ends either on or very close to Thanksgiving Day, and it
involves attempting to fit a year of work into that time span.
Four
years ago (2009), we moved in. Nothing happened on the outside of the
house, except for the arrival of what a former co-worker of mine
termed “a rocket” on the side of the house (that would be the
wood stove pipe). The house looked like hell on the outside, but—to
it's credit—it was probably one of the warmest houses in Norfolk that
winter.
Three
years ago (2010), it was the roof (finished Oct. 18) and the
foamboard on the outside of the house. We didn't finish installing
the foamboard until the following spring, when we started on the
siding.
Two
years ago (2011), it was siding and the front porch. Notice how we
started working on the siding in the last paragraph? We did a lot of
other things during the summer months.
Last
year was the year of the concrete playground. We poured the back
driveway in three separate pours (a footing for the drain, the
concrete strips on both sides of the drain, and the main section),
the back patio, and two curvy sidewalk sections. The first pour was
Sept. 19, and the last pour was Nov. 27.
