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.

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

huge snowfall
11:30 PM - 18 inches?
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.

New Hampshire’s October Snowfall – The First One!

October snow in New Hampshire
New Hampshire October Snowfall

Our first snow of the season fell in New Hampshire on October 28th and in my area (the Monadnock region) we got a couple of inches. It was heavy wet snow and with lots of leaves still on the trees – isn’t it still Fall? -branches were heavy and drooping.

When I went out to brush off my car, it was like being in the middle of a snowball fight as the big Oak tree that hangs over my driveway dropped it’s snow bombs when the wind blew! (photo below – I took these photos early in the morning)

Oak tree with leaves and snow
The Oak Tree is Still Full of Leaves

My title here says “the first one” because we are expecting more snow today – October 29th. In fact, the forecast is for 6-10 inches with 12 inches in the higher elevations.   I hope all you leaf-peepers have seen the leaves because they will be covered with white soon.…..Yikes – I am not ready for this yet. I still need to get my driveway graded and the house is only partially sided. I knew when I bought this run down place that I had limited time to make improvements before winter hit, but I did think I’d have until around December – November at least!