Friday, May 13, 2011

Home Improvements

In April a tornado touched down nearby and some high winds caused damage in our neighborhood. Well, a week ago we had a team of roofers come out and pound on our house for several hours and by sunset we had a whole new roof. Plus J and one of our friends built a gable. The roof over our front entrance was flat before and this addition was much needed to complete the look of this old house we have been renovating for the past 7 years. It's not done yet and I do not want to claim any projected date of completion. I have been living with Tim the Tool Man Taylor J for long enough now to know that every project takes way longer than expected. I am excited about the little makeover though. Every step closer to completing our dream is something to celebrate.

I will do some before and after pictures of the gable when we are done. J still has to add the staggered shingles. I didn't really like that idea at first, but we drove around half of the day on Monday for J to point out different homes that had this style. It's a great strategy really, if he holds me hostage long enough I will agree to anything. I kid. It does amaze me though that I never noticed any of these houses before. And that is not the first time this has happened. I never cared about fences. You could have asked me about whether fence poles should face inward or outward and I would have responded "fences have poles?" As it turns out as general rule it is considered a curtosy to have the finished side of the fence facing away from your property. Besides, fences were created in part for protecting your home. It's too easy for someone to climb or peer over when the rails are on the outside. However since we have done all the research we've noticed that a lot of people actually have the outside facing inside their yard. This makes sense to me because most of us are actually trying to keep our children or pets caged in more than anything. Then there are some people that have a bigger budget that have the picket fences finished on both side so the poles don't show at all. As you can see from this photo of SJ we did not have that luxury.

I think that's enough Better Home's and Gardens talk for one day. Regardless of what shingles or materials we end up using I am just thankful for the roof over my head AND that insurance paid for it.

4 comments:

Daddy-O said...

Kudos to J!!! Looks good, not to mention the biggest motive for him (I'm sure) was the roof running into that flat porch was a major cause of water leakage in the house before you bought it.

{amy} said...

Yay for a handy man husband! :) I can't wait to see the finished product!!

{amy} said...

I meant to say something about the fence! When we were putting our fence up in your neck of the woods, they seemed to always have the finished side facing out. I guess because it looks nicer? Here, they alternate them between yards so that nobody has to only have the poles facing their yard. We lucked out along the back though, because at the time that we moved in, the land hadn't even been cleared behind us. So we got the pretty side. It wasn't the safest way to go, though! Just last week, the builders put a whole new fence right behind ours, so the poles face each other & both of us have the pretty side facing our house. And to answer your question, yes that was little baby Elizabeth! :)

Virginia Revoir said...

It looks GREAT!