siding – New England's Narrow Road

One Year Ago…

construction — The Mess I Bought a Year Ago

I came across the pictures of my house being re-sided and it reminded me not only of the mess, but the big snowfall that came at the end of October. Fortunately the guys were almost done with my repairs, but I can never look at Fall the same way now. I keep thinking that we could have two feet of snow in another week – or worse – an ice storm like what they got south of here.
It’s not a pleasant thought and on a beautiful, sunny day like this one, with temps in the 60’s, it seems unlikely. But it is New England and the weather can change in a snap.
This photo also reminds me of all the good changes I’ve been able to make in a year. And that I will still need to re-side the entire back of the house in Spring (I hope).
See a couple more pictures of the before and after when my house was being transformed.

Expect more snow, typical temperatures this winter, Accuweather says (rep-am.com)
Winter could bring above-normal snowfall to N.J., AccuWeather says (nj.com)

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)

House Renovations, Day 2

One of the big problems I need fixed with all the renovations happening at my house, is the water leak at the front steps. At the top of the ugly cement steps there is a gap (and probably rotting wood) where water seeps into my basement unless I cover the steps with plastic every time it rains. I can’t imagine what my neighbors think as they see me out there with a sheet of plastic. It looks terribly tacky as you can imagine, but it keeps the water out.

Now that the guys have begun work around the steps, they told me that there was no way to move the steps because they go down into the ground at least 2 feet! That’s right, they are not just sitting there on the ground, they are deeply buried. In fact the guys think that the steps were poured on the spot and a big hole was dug to get below the frost line so the steps wouldn’t be moved by the freezing ground.

So that’s great. The ugly cement steps are permanent! At least they are able to get in behind them and hopefully keep water out of my basement.

See what happened back on Day One of renovations.