First Week Long Trip: The Reveal!

Our last installment had us finishing up the barn and picnic pavilion clean ups, and we were in the middle of power washing the siding.  The power washing of the siding went very well.  The power washer we bought for this project worked every bit as well as we could have hoped.  We performed all of the cleaning without any chemicals, just relying upon water and pressure.  Because we're on a well we really didn't want to put any harsh chemicals into the ground water.

Additionally, we needed to do some work on the back porch.  This was an add on to the house, and it was never completely finished.  The soffit was never installed, and there were a few missing pieces of siding.  This was making for a good home for birds and wasps, but we're all about keeping the wildlife outdoors.  Here are a few before shots.

Our youngest son Kyle and I tackled this project.  We're pretty pleased with the results.

This finished up the final step prior to sealing the siding and finishing the painting of the foundation.  We had a few rainy days, so we couldn't tackle the sealing until Saturday morning when the siding was dry.  After a few false starts the sealant went on fairly quickly.  We bought an inexpensive garden sprayer to apply the sealant, but found that inexpensive = cheap and useless.  We had a good quality sprayer we used for spreading weed/grass killer on the driveway.  We knew that using it would ruin it, but use it we did.  The difference was HUGE, and the sealant went on quickly.  Here are shots of each side of the finished house.

South Facing Side

Front - West Facing

North Facing Side

Rear - East Facing

Rear of the Porch - East Facing

Rear Porch Entrance

Before and After

The "Crew"

The best part about this project for me is that it was truly a group effort.  We worked hard, but we had fun while we were doing it.  We also took time to just have some fun, swimming in Black Lake and Ocqueoc Falls.  The week went by all too quickly, but we left feeling like we had truly accomplished something.  Our sore muscles told us how hard we worked, and the house told us that it was all worth it.

Throughout the week we had a few visitors.  The dog belonging to our neighbors down the road had very recently had puppies, and every day we were there one or all of them would come to visit.  Here's "Mama" and the kids.

This one is so cute it's painful.

We're not sure yet when our next trip up will be.  We have a few things on the agenda to be done, but nothing nearly on the scale of what we pulled off this week.  Thanks for stopping in, and we'll see you all soon!