Now I feel as if our summer projects are progressing--maybe only because the difference is so visible! Yesterday our siding job was started. A man, Jake, came out all by himself to tear off the siding from the front of our house. He got most of it done but will come back tomorrow to finish removing it. It was really more than one person should ever be assigned; if he had fallen from a ladder it might have been a while before he would have been found. A couple of times I heard ominous thumps and went out front to check. He was fine, but I couldn't rest easy. And I could tell by certain mistakes that he was exhausted. He laid the siding on top of some of the downspouts so they got bent; and he pulled our hose reel off the siding before removing the last bolt, so it broke. I might suggest to their company having a policy of more than one person just for the safety factor. Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor. For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up. Eccl 4:9.
So I spent the morning clipping back plants and transplanting others to make space for him, when I found that he was coming to work. By lunchtime, I had worked myself into a crazy dither. I ordered some take-and-bake pizzas, and even by the time that they were baked, I couldn't slow down and enjoy the food. Jake the workman and our neighbor Dean had pizza with us (Dean had just fixed Tim's bike--again), and it was the first time Dean had come over for anything to eat even though we'd invited them various times. That was neat except that our house was disheveled for all our projects. They didn't seem to mind.
So now the front of our house is mostly down to the black paper that was underneath the siding, and of course has gathered the attention of various neighbors--most of whom still face having to do this inevitable job to their own houses. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the underlying wood that I could see was in very good condition. It may be different in the back, where the deterioration of our old siding is more obvious. Still, I'm more encouraged that we might not encounter severe repair bills in addition to the siding work.
In addition to the progress on the siding, our vegetable plants are looking great; our tomatoes and squash plants are blooming, and the leaves turned greener after I gave them some iron. They must have had the plant-equivalent of anemia.
The nagging item is that I haven't finished painting the ceiling in the one bathroom or the edges and skylight in the other. It's just been too busy lately! But that will come with time.
We are having some Japanese exchange students later this summer for a month, and we will have to fix up the downstairs too. I might paint the main room down there if I have the opportunity (this room has awful pinkish-red paint we'll have to stain-seal first, and a strip of wallpaper to remove; we also need to assemble the two bunkbeds that are in their room--assembly should only take part of a day. When we mentioned that job, neighbor Dean said with a quirky grin as he ate his pizza, "I think I'm going to be busy that day." Gary is quick to think of asking Dean for help when the job gets challenging.
This progress is one of my favorite things, taking on the harder jobs that don't fit into the usual everyday routine. I don't like to be living in a house that needs improvement when I can't do anything about it. Even though it can be quite a mess while various things are mid-process, at least there's an improved end in view and that's a promising situation.
No comments:
Post a Comment