a comedy of errors...

got to the house monday morning and noticed a CRACK in a NEW window!!!

ugh!

we are assuming it was caused by a projectile from the lawn mower and not a drive-by...the lawn was cut this weekend and i am sure there were nails, etc still scattered about.   

then, i was removing the old fence from the backyard and decided to cut the posts below grade and bury them and let nature take its course.  they are embedded in a ball of concrete a few feet below the surface, so i figured this was my best option for removal. (don't you judge me!)

i used our reciprocating saw- the one with the plug because it is more powerful than the one with the battery pack...

the sawblade sheared completely off!  and stuck in the post!

this was after i attempted to continue to remove paint from the chimney, using our dewalt drill- the one with the plug because its more powerful than the one with the battery pack.

and i killed it!  burned out the motor!

:(

scott came to my rescue and changed out the blade and finished the chop (he couldnt believe i broke the sawblade clean off the saws-all, i mean- it's called a SAWS-ALL for a reason!)   

scott came to my rescue and bought a brand NEW dewalt drill- the kind you plug in...and it has a HANDLE!  love it!

so all that aside...some stuff actually gone done.  scott replaced the old bulkhead doors.

and he re-trimmed the garage door...the old trim was a bit rotten and cracked.

we also finished trimming out all of the windows and caulked/prepped them for paint.  we used rot-free pvc exterior trim/brickmold to trim out the windows.

oh, and last but not least, my recently retired mom stopped by to start ripping out the upstairs bathroom...she is a chip off the ol' block!

:)

window replacement

buck n' cold

I was on my way to the house last week when I was actually thinking 'wow, i have a really nice commute now,  15 minutes door-to-door, and I drive through a quaint pastoral town filled with horse farms and barns and at that very moment a buck ran by---awwwww perfect!

later, at "the office"

yup, that's me getting ready to sand the exterior sills in 40 degree weather.  I think I heard the neighbor's dogs snickering. 

so, we are trying to preserve the existing exterior window sills- they are quite weathered (sorry, no before pic-but they were grey and cracked), but after a good sanding and filling, they look 'almost' new. 

pay no attention to the types of terribly bad-for-you snacks that we keep at "the office"

some sills are beyond repair, and will have to be replaced. 

i pulled that chunck of sill off with my hands.

so here is the test/mocked up window.  with new replacement window, new pvc brick moulding and existing sanded/painted sill. 

i still need to caulk all the exterior joints, but its TOO COLD TO CAULK!

thank goodness for low temperature paint.

not a perfect sill, but much better than where it started!

remember this?

gone!