the amount of work we have left to do is about what we expected. the siding is not great, but it's not terrible. the window trim is not great, but it's not terrible, etc... today we are going to attempt to replace some of the clapboard, and go buy a router bit/table so we can do some window trim, and coo over our new heat gun.

sep 5:
zac was gone all saturday and most of sunday, so this is what i did on saturday, and this is what i did on sunday, which zac helped wrap up when he got home. the differences are subtle - two new window casings, the beltcourse and dripsash (which is mostly obscured by the scaffolding), and new siding over the destroyed area around the belt course and underneath the new window, which, as you may recall, was totally wrecked. we no longer have bees (ok, they were actually yellowjackets, but i still feel bad for having to kill them). the extent of the damage to the upper half of the siding was necessarily obscured by tarpaper until we could get the new siding up, but trust me, it was wrecked as well.

the last of the siding work is done - well, almost all, as the skirtboard still needs doing, and one dripcap, but mostly from now on, it's SCRAPE SCRAPE SCRAPE. painting? painting will take NO time.

just because it pleases me, here is the new kitchen window in a relative close-up. it no longer looks awful! yay!

sep 13

the house is 90% scraped. sanding starts soon. then painting!

sep 17

ok, the house is now 100% scraped. see, the yellow paint you can see in the prior photograph actually takes two, sometimes THREE passes to remove completely. and it's messy, too, because you have to cover the yellow stuff in linseed oil before you use the heat gun, and the first pass takes off about 15% of the paint, but seems to weaken it enough that the linseed oil can penetrate and help lift the paint for the second pass. today, we're going to be using liquidwood and woodepox to firm up some of the soft wood, and sanding the lower half of the house.

sep 22

yes, we sanded the house almost completely down to bare wood. sigh.

but, on the other hand, the house is 1/3 primed!

and, just because, here are dot and chester playing the bitey paw game.

sep 25

house is primed, except for the belt course, which we decided we wanted to paint the trim color as well.

and now it's half painted.. i call the color combination of trim primer and final house color "salmon and pea soup." it is truly revolting up close. our neighbors are probably ready to throttle us.

on to.... October!