We tore apart the house yesterday - literally

Before we get into the full demolition story of Saturday, we want to thank everyone for all of the advice on color choices. Brent V by far pulled off a brilliantly executed coup to persuade us to make different color choices - he colored 20 different images of our model with alternate choices. Thank you, Brent!

All of this feedback has left us thinking - actually, agonizing - even more over this choice. I guess, you get what you ask for! - and thankfully we do have a group of people out there willing to be thoroughly honest. We thank you for that. Despite popular opinion, we proceeded to by small quarts of yellow and green paint to test on the house. We even demoed the look of the hardwood by nailing them up on the house. This is what it looked like:

We decided against the pastel-looking yellow and green on the left of and below the wood slats. We do still like the goblin-green color on the right. And after much thought we are now leaning toward a slightly more conservative combination. Goblin-green, natural fir wood, and a dark chocolate brown. We're still playing with the color of the door, but for now we'll make it sunshine yellow. Check it out:



While these colors are still hopeful dreams in our mind - we know there's a lot more work to be done before we arrive at the fun of adding the final color touches to our labor of love. In the meantime, we're moving forward with demolition and reconstruction of the exterior of the house, including all new windows on the first floor.

Siding and windows arrive Monday! - I have the week off of work to sweat, labor, and learn alongside Spencer. Yesterday we tore all of the old siding off of our house. Apparently, our siding is a particleboard-style product that was recalled 20+ years ago. Luckily, our house did not sustain any water damage with this defective product fronting some kind of protection. I think our deep soffits and low-lying home contributed keeping our exterior in good shape.

Pat Noland (Spencer's Dad - and master builder) is in town and we have the good fortune of his help this weekend. Jim Tsen showed up in the final hour to help us pluck off some of the soffit boards, and he stayed to make us a fabulous dinner of salmon, new potatoes, and green beans - thanks, Jim!

Tools: shovel (pat's favorite trick), crowbar, cat's paw (my new favorite term - the origin of the name is ever better), hammer, ladder and staple gun.

Here's the destruction we accomplished Satruday:





Spencer and Pat just returned with lumber and nails to start framing. We're building out the exterior of the house to match the foundation - it looks like the previous owners may have built the foundation with the intention of adding brick to the house someday.

Today, the skilled labor and lessons begin. Wish us luck!

:) patty homemaker