Out My Window

... and up on my roof! 

The guys are here to repair the box gutter, soffit, fascia, and even some joists. (I know these words now because I've gotten quite a bit of education about them.)

First, there was setting up the ladders, some sawing to open up the problem area, and then some assessment. 

It turns out that the gutter is bowed down slightly in the middle and this is what led to the rotten wood and drips. The bowed gutter is pulling away from the soffit and the joists that are holding this all up are 140 years old. They can't just screw it all back together without strengthening the joists so that makes it into a two-day job rather than just one like they had originally thought.

John likes to see things for himself so he had to get up on the roof and take a look. I was content looking at the pictures that the guy showed me on his phone. I did have to laugh to myself a little because I've learned that whenever John stands with his hands on his hips, he's making an important decision. The decision he made was to fix it right and that doubled the cost. 

So we'll see what the final invoice comes to. John and I have taken bets, and my bet is twice what John's is. If you look at those buckets of Gaco Roof and Gaco Patch in the photo below, those materials alone are $450.00 and $250.00 respectively. But look at those nice new boards to repair and strengthen the old joists! I do feel happier knowing that hopefully, the whole gutter assembly won't just rip off the house when we get some heavy snow. I'm not worried that the cost of the repair just doubled because I bought some Powerball tickets so I can pay for it with my winnings. :-)

They've asked me questions about 12 different times, and while I appreciate knowing what's going on, I did have to chuckle at one of the questions. That nice piece of white molding in the photo below is what they are replacing the peeling and rotten fascia with. They are trimming the new molding to match the height of the old stuff, but there is a little lip on the new molding that is about 0.5" higher than on the old one. The head guy wanted to make sure I was okay with that. I almost laughed but told him that I doubted I would be able to even tell the difference standing on the ground, so it was just fine with me. 

So that's the view out my windows, doors, and up on the roof. I hope your own views are pleasant (and maybe not costing you too much)!

Almost ...

While I'm at Ryan's shoveling, wheelbarrowing, and raking topsoil, I thought I'd give you a shutter update. John got the bright idea to paint our house shutters blue and he's finished (almost).

They don't look nearly as bright on the house as they did up close, and he even painted the outside window sills blue to match. I still like green the best, but given the scary acrobatics he had to perform on the ladder to replace the second-story shutters on the side, I'm fairly confident they will remain blue as long as we own the house. 

I park my car down by the barn and walk up to the house and I noticed something when I got back from some errands yesterday.

That sill at the top is still red. That big grate is the outlet for our attic fan and not easily accessible from inside. That means John would probably need to perform more death-defying acts of bravery on the ladder to reach it and paint it blue. I'm sure not getting the ladder out (I can't even lift it without help) and I'm definitely not climbing up there to paint it myself, so I've decided that sometimes being a considerate spouse means knowing when to keep your mouth shut. That's just what I'm going to do. (Maybe the next time we have the tree guys here with their ladder truck I'll ask them if they might consider doing it.)

Time For a Change

Our neighbor is a great guy. He's always ready with a friendly wave and more in-depth conversations a few times each year but he's never nosy or noisy. He's almost always outdoors, planting mums, patching bare spots in his lawn, repairing downspouts, and sometimes even brushing sand out of the cracks in his patio pavers. His last name is Potter and we've started saying "we're Pottering today" if we are doing low-key maintenance tasks around the house. 

His summer project has been to take down the wooden shutters on his house, prime and paint them by hand, and put them back up. He has 18 pairs of shutters so this is a project that has taken him much of the summer. John has observed all of this and decided he needed to paint our shutters. 

When we bought the house the shutters were dark green, which I quite liked. 

Somewhere along the line (probably 15 years ago or so), John decided that they would look better painted red, so that's what he did. 

Our shutters are metal, just decorative, and there are only nine pairs of them plus some lower window trim that will need to be painted, but it's not nearly as big a project as our neighbor's. John started on Wednesday, swore at the sprayer when it clogged after 10 seconds, and bought a fancy new one, so now he has to finish the job. Guess what color our shutters are now? 

They're Ford Blue, and they're quite bright. He did buy tractor paint, so I'm glad he didn't choose New John Deere Yellow or Kubota Orange.

John asked what I thought (I wasn't consulted before this project got started) and I asked him if it mattered. (I know it doesn't now that there are eight shutters painted.) I don't think it will look nearly as nice with my usual Christmas decor of wrapping the columns like peppermint sticks, but I didn't have to do anything*, so that sort of works for me. With his attention to detail, John has also painted the hardware. 

I'll post a few photos when all the shutters are painted, put back on the house, and the window trim is painted. I do hope all that gets done before it gets too cold (and before I have to help paint). 

Wishing you all a good weekend! We're supposed to get rain from tropical storm Ian (which we still really need) so I don't think there will be much painting going on here.

* ETA: I did have to do something! Thursday afternoon John decided to take down the second-story shutters to paint them, and they were a bit more difficult. I had to help carry the terribly heavy wooden 40-foot extension ladder up from the barn and then hold the bottom while John climbed up to unscrew the shutters. Then I had to go halfway up the ladder to bring down the shutters as he handed them to me. It's a wonder neither of us was injured, but we do still have to put the shutters back up after they are painted. I am not looking forward to that!

Up On the Roof

I called five roofing guys, two called back, and one showed up. That's about par for the course, especially because we have box or Yankee gutters on the house and there seem to be about three guys in the state that will work on them. 

That ugly area in the middle at the top has been leaking. The three-foot icicle that we noticed last winter as we were leaving for MD was our first clue. 

Here's the guy yelling down to John that the ugly area is really just peeling paint and doesn't seem to be rotting wood. That was good news, but the estimate that we got today wasn't quite as pleasant. It includes labor of $130/hour and a 10-hour minimum, using materials that are currently running $550 for a 5-gallon can of the sealant goop. There is no estimate of how long the job might take, or how much of this stuff and other materials might be needed. I've never seen an estimate quite like this and will continue to seek out others while I lament that old all houses are not cheap to own.

I hope your Friday has better news than mine and your weekend is a good one!