Tuesday, October 1, 2013

HOME STRETCH 2013

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.






This year, it looks like a lot of smaller projects (having already finished the big project: the front driveway). Right now I'm working on the steps and railing on the north end of the front porch. When that's done, we'll remove the front steps, pour a new sidewalk from the front sidewalk to where the new front steps will be, and then build new front steps. Then it's time to install the back steps, finish the fence gate on the north side of the patio, and install a few fence posts near the back driveway. Any other progress will be most unwelcome until done.