More windows

Today Selden and Ray put in 9 windows! They have some finish work left to do, but they are 1/2 done! If money wasn't an issue, we would have rather had real wood windows with true divided light. But... we have a lot more to do. We have really almost gained glass because of the storms that blocked the view from the original windows. So nice to not have chipping, pealing paint and glazing. We use window air conditioners and are surely going to have to get bracing to install the ac units.

Living room

Dining room -- we haven't painted this yet with the interior trim color.

First new windows!

Yay! The new windows came today. We are using Marvin Integrity fiberglass replacement windows. We are really impressed that we lost hardly any glass area. They are brown fiberglass on the outside and white vinyl on the inside. We are very pleased with the grids that look more like divided light than other windows we have seen. The first windows were replaced in the bathroom/closet that is set for renovations next. All the windows should be replaced by the end of Tuesday...hopefully. After peeling off the old layers, the new ones are starting to go on. The house is now all wrapped up in tyvek!

Looks a bit strange because wall between bathroom and closet has been partially demolished.

Two new windows in upper story. 

Still debating about putting the aluminum awning back on (after painting). It looks so much better without it.

Prepping for new windows!

Somewhere along the line an upstairs bedroom was divided into a walk-in cedar closet and bathroom. They placed a dividing wall right in the middle of a double window. We intend to remove the wall and make a larger bathroom with a smaller closet. In order to put the new windows in, we had to demolish some of the wall between the closet and the bathroom. Now we really have to get the bathroom done next. What fun!

"This is the house that Marty build" -- good thing he could build, because he couldn't spell! Marty must have written this when he built the wall.

The wall with the cedar lining removed.

The whole closet was covered in cedar. We will salvage it for something.

Me with the safety goggles!! and mask. The old shower curtain is protecting clothes.  We only demolished enough to get the windows in for now. New bathroom next. 

Peeling away the layers.

Under the siding was cement board. It was never painted but enough was damaged that it couldn't be used. We got an estimate for stucco and it was way higher than we wanted to spend, $15K. So we hemmed and hawed and finally decided to just go with vinyl cedar shake. We would have gone with real cedar, but the one side of the house is hard to get at because it is very close to the lot line so it would be tough to maintain. The new windows will be bronze fiberglass on the exterior. We want brown trim to go with the cedar look, so we are wrapping the trim back up again in aluminum (it actually wasn't wrapped before -- just covered with siding).

Today our friend got all the cement board off, and the aluminum awning. We may paint the awning brown and put it back for now. Ziggy likes his covered porch. We aren't ready to build a new porch roof quite yet. Tomorrow the tyvek goes on and the windows are getting delivered.

Recycling aluminum!

The aluminum siding pile was getting pretty large so we pulled out the trailer and loaded her up. We used our dumpster bag as a liner for the trailer. It was a perfect fit...4X8. Gina was closest in guessing how much we had, but we were both way off. The price for aluminum in our area is 48 cents a pound. Our trailer load netted us a cool $145 (that would be a lot of soda cans)! I forgot about the can of siding until after I strapped down the trailer. Luckily if fit in the back of the Subaru!

The garden

Catching up on a few things we've been doing. While Selden worked on the house, we were busy putting in our raised planter beds. The very dry April kinda put the garden on hold a little. Now the rain has finally caught up a little... we got back into the dirt. We went with the cedar kits from Home Depot. We got a great deal on them due to a misprint on their website...they were 1/2 price. :)