September 2004

September 1, 2004: Still patching, sanding, priming, painting. And patching, sanding, priming and painting. Lather, rinse, repeat.

We have, however, in this excruciatingly dull process, reached a few exciting milestones. They're good for a fifteen-minute Hurrah!, high-fives all around, and a great, deep sigh of accomplishment... then back to patching, sanding, priming and painting.

We started this whole exterior renovation project at the back of the house, mostly because, while it's where all Joey's additions are located (and is thus fraught with the potential for terrifying surprises) the additions are all one and two-story. Easy to reach, and hey, not so noticeable if we screw up.

But now the back of the house is completely DONE-- clapboards and trim repaired or replaced, washed, sanded, primed and painted. Check out this change (roll your mouse over the photo for before and after views):

And after two years' worth of work, if you kind of squint and put your hand over your computer monitor on the right side of the photo where we haven't even started working, you can almost visualize what the entire house will look like when it's done.

Or we can, anyway, but then again, we freely admit it might be wishful thinking. Or the influence of adult beverages.

Oh, and by the way, for those of you who vicariously shared my quasi-nervous breakdown over the paint color in July, you will be happy to know that the paint color still looks as good as the day we splotched it on. I'm happy, and I still lurrrrrve cheesecake.

It felt good to have most all of the additions painted, and they look fantastic. The clapboards Joey put on 30 years ago are, believe it or not, still in incredible shape-- barely a nick or scratch on them, and the paint finish is about flawless. They literally look like we installed them yesterday, just as God grew 'em.

Even so, there was still one thing we had not yet done, and which we approached with some trepidation...

We had not actually painted any of the original clapboards on the house. We'd nailed them back secure to the house, sanded them, filled the holes with wood filler, caulked the cracks, primed them, went back and filled and caulked what we missed, and then re-primed them, but we still had no idea whether, after all that, they'd actually look respectable, or if we'd have to actually explore our deepest, darkest nightmares of... *gasp*... re-siding the entire house.

So, with big fat paintbrush firmly entrenched among trembling fingers, we set to painting the one patch of original clapboards that had been completely patched and primed.

And thank God, Buddha, Allah, Shiva, Zeus, some ancient Sumarian deities we're sure we've forgotten to mention, our parents, our agents, the director, the cinematographer, the production company, the Academy, and all the other fabulous people without whom we wouldn't be here today... they looked great:

September 7, 2004: Sadly, though, there's no rest for the triumphant.

A rainy Labor Day weekend precluded us from painting, so we turned our attention to framing.

When we tore off the asbestos siding on the house in April 2003, we discovered two old window openings, one on the first floor and one on the second, covered with plywood:

We left the window opening on the first floor covered, and sided over it, because that particular wall is the end wall in the kitchen where we'll install two cabinet hutches flanking a fireplace. No room, or need, for a window.

But we liked the idea of having a window on the second floor wall. We knew, though, that we'd have to shift it a bit because its current location would have put it smack dab in the middle of our master bathroom tub surround. Hmm... Not gonna work.

But a new window, of exactly the same dimensions, on the same wall, but shifted over 18 inches or so? Golden.

So we got demolishin', got framin', sidin', and wrappin', and got this:

Much better. We'll still have a big ol' window in the master bathroom-- it just won't be located directly in the tub and shower surround, but instead, will face the double vanity. We won't have to deal with the headaches of trying to tile around it and make it waterproof, and the deer living in the Preserve won't see us naked in the shower. Instead, they'll just see us blow-drying our hair and putting on mascara. We can live with that. And, a few months from now when the master bathroom's done, if you see deer that are particularly well-groomed and sporting the latest lines from MAC and Aveda... just know that we sent them.

September 14, 2004: We have reached ... a milestone. A veryveryvery small milestone, in the grand scheme of things, but a huge one for us!

The Smurfs? They are Gone. Evicted, unceremoniously, with a simple utilitarian splash of primer wielded on a 4" paintbrush, but evicted nonetheless, and we're currently enjoying a huge sigh of relief, follwed by a flush of pride that shows no signs of dissipating.

We've tried extremely hard to be fair, but even so, we have only a vague idea why someone would paint a huge old house, sitting on top of a huge old hill, surrounded by three and a half huge old acres... Electric. Smurf. Blue.

We explained it as best we knew, and as best we could, in the Gallery section on the Exterior of the house. The explanations withered, however, when confronted with the reality of the result-- a huge hunk o' house sitting like a Psychotically. Blue. Wart. on top of a hill:

And it's tortured us. It's tortured us for two years. We cringed when our extremely generous neighbors threw us a welcome party when we moved in, and the first words out of everyone's mouths in the area were, "So when are you gonna paint the house?", we cringed when our family and friends came to visit and said, "Wow, you weren't kidding when you said it was Blue," and we cringed when our then 3 year-old daughter said, "Hey, we live in a house just like Bear in the Big Blue House!" We just couldn't stand it.

Don't get us wrong... we liked Bear a lot, and his friends were pretty cool, too-- we totally relate to Tutter's obsessive-compulsive nature to order his environment, and we aspire to Luna's zen-like ability to put the events of the day into the perspective of over-arching cosmic harmony. All that aside? Bear soooooo needed an architect and designer for that Big Blue House of his (what a frickin' disaster), and we just couldn't consider the comparison as favorable.

We don't mind rural (living that), we don't mind stripped-to-the-studs unfinished (living that), we don't even mind things breaking down on us left and right (yup, living that, too), but Unmitigated Ugly?

Hurts. Our. Haidbones.

So we've spent the last two years trying to eradicate the stigma of being labelled as the people living in the "Big Blue (No Excuse for Ugly) House."

We started stripping the Smurf Blue siding in March of last year, and have been plugging away at it ever since.

And now, a year and a half later, we can finally, proudly say that all vestiges of that beastly blue have been eradicated, with the application of a primer coat on this side of the house:

Ahhhhhh... sweet freedom from the curse of diminutive blue critters who were a staple of 80's cheesy children's television programming...

For anyone who wants to come on up for a visit, just head on north out of town, and we're about three miles up on the right, just on the hill.

Decrepit farmhouse? Check. Patchwork siding? Check. Ratty, unmowed lawn? Check. Pitted, overgrown driveway? Yup, you've probably hit the right place.

Big old Blue House?

Uh, nope. Sorry, try on up the road...

September 29, 2004: We've finally been beaten down, and we're checkin' out.

Despite weeks of rain occasioned by the remnants of Hurricanes Charlie, Frances, Ivan (and Ivan again!) and Jeanne in the last month, we got the last bit of the exterior of the house that we'd primed actually painted:

Looks great, but we've still got a ways to go, and we're going to have to beat the seasonal clock to get much more done before the first frost hits the MidAtlantic.

It's a daunting task, and we're frustrated by two summers' worth of unseasonably wet weather. (Translation: We're drowning in rain, ground water, and overflowing aquifers... good thing we live on a hill!)

So we've loaded our packs, and we're heading north to Vermont for a week to backpack 60 miles of the Long Trail, the oldest long distance hiking trail in the United States. We've laced up our boots, packed the tent, stuffed our sleeping bags, stowed our fleece, and stashed tons of instant Lipton's meals, granola and chocolate.

Don't care if we encounter bears, bugs, or mud, just as long as we escape the rain! Hope we'll see some spectacular vistas, dodge particularly poisonous wildlife, and meet some interesting people.

See you next month... Hopefully high and dry, with some terrific pictures to post and interesting stories to tell!

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