Coming along.

Although we haven't posted in awhile the work has been rolling right along. There are a few stories and a lot of excuses why there are no photos but they will be coming.

We've been lucky enough to have a couple 60 degree weekends so we took our act outside. The plan was to repair the stucco and paint the entire house. My brother came down one weekend and the three of us spent the day pulling out bushes and peeling the ivy off. This was a bigger project than it looked. The ivy had grown into the stucco so much so that it came off in little pieces but it was a beautiful day and we had fun.

It wasn’t a week later when the contractor approached us with a concern. Turns out, you can repair stucco but it will never match properly. There will always be seams, differences in texture and they said it would buckle in the same places down the road. Plus we would most likely have to paint down the road when we sell. Since we don’t have the money to re-stucco the whole house, he said he’d vinyl the whole thing for the same price as the repair. While we want to go original as much as possible we agreed.

The next weekend (at 7am) we woke up to what seemed like the house coming down. These guys were working hard shoveling the stucco off the house to the ground and then into trucks. Two long twelve-hour days and the house was naked. I’m so glad that was not my job!



What was our job was once the stucco was off you could see everything. Every board that needed to be replaced and there was a lot in the back from the water damage. So Alexis, her Dad and myself took a quick trip to get wood and we started in on shoring up boards with 2x4s and then pounding in plywood on top of those to give the vinyl guys a smooth surface. We also had a door on the second floor that went out to that wonderfull deck. We had them take that out also. So much of the house has changed. Thanks to Buddy for all the help. Pretty amazing to think of how these houses are built and what they can withstand.

There were a lot of people around our house that day. People, taking the stucco off. The electrician, sinking the outside wires into the house. We met a lot of curious neighbors and we met people that have worked on the house in the past and wanted to see the progress. I always wondered who put that hot tub in upstairs.

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