July 12, 2010

And There Goes the Siding


Will and I are a lot alike. Obviously we're not identical, that would be weird. He, for example, can fall asleep the second his head hits the pillow, where as I will lay there staring at the ceiling for a good 45 minutes before I can nod off. Yeah, I'm jealous.

But we do have a lot in common, and one of those things is that once we get something into our heads, it sticks. And really, it's just a foregone conclusion that it will happen, so it's not worth arguing about. Not that we don't try to talk each other out of things, but, generally, once we're in, we're in. This weekend is a good example.

On my end, it was the bike. Yes, I could probably have fixed up my crummy old bike but I didn't want to. It was horrible and uncomfortable, and yes, ok, ugly. And while we are trying to cut down the budget, the whole idea of not using the car much hinged on both of us being able to ride around town easily, so me getting a new bike was one of those things that Will didn't even try to argue about. He just nodded, and let me pick out my pretty new bike ( I can't help it, my daughter is rubbing off on me, I like pretty!) Which I have named Ms. Bennett, by the way. I mean, I name all my cars, so why not my bike? And yeah, if you know me well, you get the name. She's pretty, but not flashy, and sensible without being stiff. If she were too sensible I'd have to call her Charlotte. But I digress.

So I've got Ms. Bennett, and Will, well he ripped off a chunk of siding, which means, in effect, that it will now all come off.

I admit I was the holdout here. We've ripped siding off of a house before so I know that it's a huge, messy pain in the you know what. And I wasn't looking forward to that. But what was really bugging me was the though t that we would loose a layer of insulation on our already freezing in the winter, baking in the summer house. And worse, I REALLY didn't want to deal with getting rid of all that insulation. The last house was much smaller, but I still feel guilty about all those bags of Styrofoam insulation that we sent to the dump. So I hemmed and hawed. But even still, I knew it would come off, his fingers had been itching to get to work on it for a good few months already. So I gave in. And guess, what? There WAS NO INSULATION! Which, you know, explains a lot, but also makes me feel much better. Not that it wont still be a messy pain in the arse, but since we can recycle the siding, the house will look 100% better AND there wont be any Styrofoam guilt.

Of course there will still be issues, like the big hole that was obviously once a window which we found under the small chunk that we removed. Not sure what we'll do there, maybe some kind of on the house cold frame... but anyway, I'm sure there will be more surprises, but with a test coat of the color and sheen on the unearthed siding and coat number one on the deck surface, I'm starting to see what our house will look like. Which now makes me totally impatient to get it all done, NOW! But what's new? I hate waiting. Not sure I have much of a choice this time however, there are some very tall parts on our house, so this should be interesting.

*This picture makes the paint look oddly green. It's really very dark gray, with a hint of blue in the sunshine. Kind of like this, but with a little more blue to it.