The front door is painted and re-installed with a new door knob. Steve and I originally put the door back up but the new draft guard on the bottom prevented us from being able to completely close the door! So James raised the door a bit and now it closes, it swings all the way open (whereas previously, it didn't. Thanks, settling house). It is so nice!
The entryway is now completely painted. Claudine finished the second coat Monday morning.
The baby birds fledged on Wednesday. They grow FAST! I painted primer on the cedar shakes on Monday and Tuesday and they were still in the nest - although the three birds looked pretty crowded , especially when mama joined them! So, Thursday, I took down the next and cleaned up the ledge and painted it Friday.
You have to look very closely to see the beaks of the baby birds in the first photo and, the second photo shows the removed next and one little brother or sister bird who never made it out of the shell.
Speaking of painting, I have done all the white exterior painting.
First I brushed primer on many of the white areas and then exterior white on all the windows, garage trim, on the soffit under-hangs, and around all the doors and on the cedar shake facade in the front. I also touched up the green shutters. Steve has painted his portion of the west and north side (he is the roller-guy). James has done all of his part on the west and south side. The south side was really in bad shape! The wood gable above was peeling and chipped off. The trim around the back door was rotting so he completely removed that and put up new. And the siding was rotting down at the bottom. After James repaired that, we believe he enclosed a bee hive because now we see bees hovering around the bottom of the siding. Oops! And, speaking of flying, stinging insects - the cedar shakes are perfect hiding places for wasp nests (both the paper and the mud kind) and Steve had to go to the store to buy wasp poison before finishing his part of the east side painting. Up next week is doing the rest of the gray painting - James on the west and north side; Steve on the south and west side; me cutting in around all the windows and doors on all the sides. And we will be doing this with a full week forecast of scattered thunderstorms! But, this is Missouri where, even though the meteorologists try to give an accurate prediction, most of the time, they are wrong. So, we have hope that, throughout the week, we will be able to finish up the exterior painting. I would post before/after pictures but we are duplicating exactly what was already up so I would be difficult to tell. But, the rotting siding will be gone - hooray!!!
We celebrated Steven's birthday last Sunday evening. We had a family Zoom call in the afternoon and my poor 64.5 year old brain forgot how old he was and I said he was 39. That explains his birthday cake...
(not shown - all the mole runs throughout the yard. Each patch of bare dirt in the lawn is where a mole has left his mark. While Trissy was alive, we didn't see so much activity. I believe she was a deterrent.)
Steve and I have made SO many trips to hardware stores in the past few months. This past week was no exception. First it was to get more exterior paint. Then it was for more straw to spread over grass seed that had to be re-planted in areas where heavy rain had washed everything away. It was to buy two new exterior lights because how could we re-install the old, tarnished, grungy lights back on to our freshly painted walls? Only, we forgot we had a third outdoor light in back so, away to the hardware store again! This remodeling has been quite the journey! I worry that it is just a dress-rehearsal for what we will buy in St. Louis. I also know I have learned a LOT about houses and I will know what to look for when we do finally get to start looking. I will be happy to finally move into a single level living home with not so much square footage to clean and yard to maintain but I will miss our home of twenty-four years...
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