Pam – Page 112 – New England's Narrow Road

Before and After, New Siding, Home Makeover

My new yellow house fixer-upper — My new house, as it looked before I moved in.

I haven’t been good at keeping photos coming of my new home makeover, but here is the final picture (below) and you can see the changes that have been made to the foreclosure I bought this past summer.

The old, dark yellow clapboard was rotted and gross – as you can see in the photo above that was taken in May this year. Since I couldn’t afford to have the entire back of the house sided just yet, I opted to keep the yellow color but chose a lighter shade for the new siding. The left side wall had never been painted to match the rest of the house, so now it does match.

Instead of adding green shutters (the old ones were crumbling), I chose neutral white, which may look a bit dull in comparison, but will, in the end, look nice once I have the gardens planted along the front. I’m trying to look at the big picture and I know it will take years to accomplish, but for now I know that my house won’t rot away beneath me.

As you can see, our 2 feet of snow has pretty much melted away! Yay…

The new siding job – removing the old from the front and both sides – and replacing the front door and 4 windows in the front, took 2 weeks. The guys lost one day to power outages and the freak snow storm, but they were here rain or shine otherwise and I am completely happy with their work. I would recommend “Branchas Siding” (now called ProVision Exteriors), to anyone.

after house renovations completed — The “after” photo of my home renovations.

My House Make-Over: Off With The Old Clapboards (newenglandsnarrowroad.wordpress.com)
My First Look at The New Siding! (newenglandsnarrowroad.wordpress.com)

Skimpy Halloween Decorations, But I’ve Got Candy!

Halloween candle holders in the window — Skimpy Halloween Decor

Even before the two feet of snow fell, my Halloween decorations had been partially removed. This was because of the renovations on the outside of my house. Now that the windows have been installed there is a nice little ledge for my three Halloween candle holders to sit upon. Besides the buried pumpkin and partially snow-covered ghost out at the end of the driveway, and a plug-in Jack O’Lantern inside the mud room, that is all I have up for decorations.

I was excited to do Halloween this year because I live in an actual neighborhood and figured that kids would be coming to collect some goodies. My own son will be visiting with friends in our old neighborhood and he is a bit too old to trick or treat, so I decided I would drop him off and then go home and watch for kids to come and get their candy.

Now there is snow which brings ice from the warming and melting during the day, and tonight on Halloween I’m afraid my driveway will be challenging so I’ll have to put out some sand. But my front lights are not up yet so there won’t be any lights to put on except for my big pumpkin sitting in the window of the mudroom. I honestly don’t know what to expect. I’ve asked a couple of the neighbor kids (who came to help me shovel yesterday) and they said there really aren’t that many kids around.

Our town has power, so the plans have not changed, like so many have had to do to the south of us. So tonight will be a new adventure in the new neighborhood and I’ll see what Halloween is like around here. I hope the kids come by, because I’ve got some treats for them!

Waking Up to Two Feet of Snow – In October!

Nightmare New England is a spooky Halloween theme park, but in New Hampshire we are waking up to our own nightmare of two feet of snow – in October! The forecast was for 6-10 inches with 12 in the higher elevations, so I expected around a foot. At midnight I woke up and got a photo of my porch which already had 18 inches and it was snowing pretty hard still. It’s the perfect, real-life Halloween nightmare!

I count myself very lucky to still have power. It was flickering around midnight, but has not gone out. The wind here didn’t seem too bad and maybe that is why. All the wiring is also underground in my neighborhood.

snowfall amount of two feet — Measuring just shy of 2 feet at 5AM Sunday

I can’t see much out front yet as my outside lights have been removed during the siding renovation. The guys were going to finish up next week and now I wonder how far this will set them back. It will be a Halloween to remember.
I grew up in Massachusetts and do not remember going Trick or Treating EVER in snow. And this is more snow at one time than I have ever seen. I feel sorry for the little kids who want to go out and get candy.

It could have been worse. Down further south of us they got a lot of ice and there are many power outages and lots of damage.

car covered with snow — Lots of shoveling to do.

As the sun comes up it will be a winter wonderland, with lots of shoveling to be done. I wonder what will happen with Halloween? It makes me feel bad for the kids, as walking around on roads full of snow will be dangerous.

New Hampshire Snow – My House at 11:30 PM October 29th

The power is flickering so this will be quick. I just woke up at 11:30 PM and this is what my porch looks like. I have an 18 inch ruler to measure snow and I know I have over that on my deck and it’s still snowing hard.
We have buried power lines here and I’m sure that could be why we still have power, but I don’t see it lasting. This is pretty bad.