Day 13: The Siding is Going Away!!!

I am so excited!!!  I woke up this morning only to find an email from my contractor stating that the siding tear-off would begin today if the weather cooperated.  Agh, it's finally here!!!  I'm like a kid in a candy store!!!  I just couldn't wait to see what we would find.

Would the wood underneath be ok?  Would I find termite damage?  What is the real condition of this house?!  But I would have to wait for just a little while longer...

But there was still plenty of work to be done!!!

My first stop this morning was my sister's house.  This is mildly embarrassing, but I ran out of stones for my lanscaping in the backyard!  I had plenty of grey but no more purple, so I had to trade my grey ones for her purple ones I had used on her firepit!  She said that was ok...as long as she was able to keep the firepit!  ha!  Yes, sister, you can still keep the firepit.

I then headed to the hardware store.  I picked up some PVC parts to hopefully fix my heat pump leak, some cabinet handles (more on this in a second), a bathtub strainer, and yet another air vent.  Ok, so those cabinet handles!  I had purchased 22 last week.  Well, one was the wrong bag (my fault), but one was the wrong part in the right bag!  So I returned these two and was hoping to pick up two.  But I bought them out last week!!!  And just my luck...the handle was now discontinued!!!  Agh, we searched high and low...and finally found the remaining two in the store!  Not where they were supposed to be!  We just dug and dug and dug through other trays.  But I was relieved!  I got 'em!  :)

Once back at the house, I installed the remaining kitchen cabinet handles.  I like the look much better.  So that project is now done!  A little update for $50.  I like.

Replacing the dirty and sticky white handles.

Voila!

I then cleaned and cleaned the very dirty oven! It's amazing what just a little shine does for an object.  I tried to put the oven back in place, but it turns out that the power cord was just way too long!  It would get caught in the oven when pushed back!  So after letting Dad know that, he said he would just shorten it.  He had just fixed it on Saturday, but now he took off about two feet from the cord.  Perfect.  That project is now done!

I had plenty of grease and stains to wipe down!

Just like new!

I also replaced the air vent in the kitchen.  I've said it before many times...but what a difference $8 can make!

Before...

After!

And then the contractor showed up around 11:00 this morning!  Woo hoo!!!  I was beyond excited!  I just couldn't wait to see what this house turns into!  This is where my hard work and effort comes together...the massive change is about to happen!

He started ripping off siding right away!  GREAT NEWS!  The house looks great underneath the siding.  The fiberboard is in absolutely terrific shape, and part of my house even has plywood installed!  It's just so fun now.  This house project is really coming together.

The yellow siding is going away!  Woo hoo!!!

The fiberboard is in great shape!

I almost had a snag, though.  The door guy showed up to install my front door and garage entry door, and I noticed two different colors as he took them out of the truck!  One was bright white (my front door), and the other was a dark grey (my garage door).  I had ordered these offline, and I guess the cheap garage door went with a grey primer.  I asked him if I could run to the store and return it and get a white one, and he said no problem.  So I had to take an hour out of my morning to do that, but I was THRILLED to have caught that!  I would have been heartbroken to have seen a grey door installed!

Crisis averted!  But just barely!

To celebrate, I took the afternoon off and headed up to see my grandparents!  My brother, nephew, and dad all went along.  We spent a couple of hours up there, and that was so nice.  This had been planned, and as I said to Dad a few days ago, "It doesn't matter how many houses you have if you don't hang out with your family."

Of course, with that said, I was still certainly eager to get back and see what my house looked like in the late afternoon!!!  I just can't express in words how exciting it is to take an old house and give it new life.  The yellow is going away forever!  And hopefully a new-house look will be here to stay.

Look at that gorgeous new front door!!!

The wood is in perfect shape!

I don't  miss the yellow one bit.

I am sooooooooo excited to see my "new" house!  It looks so much better already!

They work pretty fast!

The new front door already installed!

All of the parts for my "new" home!  Can't wait!

This is so much fun!

And just for fun since I removed some more stones from the backyard today, here is the mess that used to be in my front and back yards.  It just boggles my mind.  Give me grass over rock any day!!!

All the landscaping stone removed from the tiny yard!