Replacing A Few Rotting Trim Boards
Well timing hasn't worked really well for a couple of years, and last year and the year before no trim repairs were made. Last year my refrigerator died leading to the minor kitchen remodel and we just ran out of time, even though materials for the job had already been purchased. So they've been waiting in the garage since last year for this week. TheGuru came and we got the trim all cut and primed and ready to go, and we started with the trim at the garage "barn doors." Here is a pic from a few years ago that shows the garage on the left and the barn doors above: 
Well, the sill/threshold at the bottom of those barn doors wasn't working very well and we didn't know that water has been running inside the walls, probably for years. The rim joist below the door and the bottom of the king studs and door frame below we all rotted and needed replacing. TheGuru was so nice as to stay and continue to work over the entire weekend to get this done before he had to go to other commitments starting Monday (today). I didn't take any pictures over the last 4 days while we were (mostly he was) doing the work to replace the rotted wood, but today I'll try to get a picture of the new clapboards covering all of the affected area. Not one of the other trim boards was replaced and the wood is sitting in the garage. At least now it is all cut and primed and ready to be installed. I hope underneath the other rotting trim boards the news isn't as bad. |
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| Beautiful house Ron! I have alot of sympathy for your project as I have had a similar issue with my detached garage. With the landscaping work, a number of plants and a tree in front of the garage were removed, revealing massive rot on the side walls of the garage. You could just poke right through the walls and it crumbled away. The whole side is being redone to include a waterproof membrane and concrete siding material. I am glad to get this done before the new plants will be installed. Various other drainage issues are also being corrected in this project. Right now, my back yard looks like a mudslide. |
| Very pretty house - and the tree isn't bad either!
I can't wait to see the updated pictures. I just cringe at our house - I'm sure we have a similar situation going on where 2 roof lines meet above our bathroom.  |
| Yes, I agree, gorgeous house....pretty tree too! |
| Good Luck Ron!
What a LOVELY house!!! |
| Good grief, that's a beautiful house and love the colors on the tree. |
| Gorgeous house! I hope the damage isn't too bad (crossing my fingers for you ) |
What a pretty house... and a very lovely tree! That house made me think of the kids' show "Bear and the Big Blue House", lol. I showed the picture to my youngest son because I thought he'd say that's what it made him think of, and when I asked him what he though of that house, he said, "I want to rake the leaves into a huge pile and jump from the little balcony into the pile". The he asked if I was looking at houses to move in to.... Gee, I wish!  |
| Can I move in??????? I LOVE your house!!!!! |
Oh my GOSH!  I LOVE your house! 
could we get some inside pics too? 
I know this is about a repair job....but wow...Im just too stunned by the house to comment on anything else yet!  |
| I know I'm repeating it but I LOVE your house too |
Sure! I'll look around my photo gallery... 
The other angle... 
A little further around to the side.. You can see that back of the house is extended, so it is quite a lot larger inside than it looks from the street. 
Back of house and half the yard, but from the back of the backyard 
Looking at the other side of the backyard from the house....Big tree! That's the neighbor's house on the right. 
Big tree in winter 
House in winter 
Kitchen before minor remake 
Kitchen during remodel 
TheGuru's setup inside our garage during minor kitchen remodel 
I have other pics not online from around the house, but they're mostly just empty room pics and boring. All the walls are linen white, all the carpets are beige. I don't have any "after" pics of the kitchen... it's never been in good shape enough! DARCY!!!! COME CLEAN WITH ME!!!!! |
| WOW you are very lucky, that is so way beautiful I think Maryann should come over and help he he |
| WOW gorgeous place, love the colour scheme outside really lovely.
Your autumn trees are magnificiant too.
Very pretty area and love the house with all the snow around it, looks like a postcard picture. |
| Oh- the WINTER scene is just gorgeous. I have vacation in December. Can I come and camp out in your front yard just to enjoy the view
Wait! We don't camp..  |
| Gorgeous house, and HUGE!! Love your backyard, too and all the plants and trees. Wow! |
| Wow, Ron, I agree what an amazing home you have. For some reason I remember you posting a pic and I thought your house was white.
Any way a blue house even makes me like it more! What kind of architecture would that be? And who is the guru, I've heard him mentioned before. It seems there is always some kind of maintenance to be done on a home. But such a big sigh of relief as things are completed. |
| Well, when it is covered with snow it looks white...
Maybe you're thinking of our motorhome? TheGuru is the part time expert at the repair place forum. He is a member here and answers questions over there if prodded. |
| Wow your house looks amazing!! Can we come stay? The winter scene looks great too. We should have a "We live here" thread, I love looking at everyones houses and towns etc. Especially overseas! But then I'm a woman...apparently we are supposed to be nosey |
| Continuing with the nosiness - What do you do with all that space??? I thought it was just you, Joan and Mulligan!
It is just beautiful, the winter shots are so nice. I love seeing pictures of other parts of the country. Maybe it would be a fun topic - we do have a lot of variety in our members around the world. |
| My goodness what a lovely home. It's so picturesque and serene looking. The yard is just gorgeous, too. |
| Looks can be deceiving
It's about 3,000 square feet give or take. 700 of them are not being used for anything other than storage. That would be the gigantic open room above the garage. For 15 years I've been threatening to turn it into a "Man's Room" but apparently I'm not man enough to do that. There are 3 full baths and 1 3/4 bath (stall shower). The 3/4 is a small utility bath off the foyer next to the garage. There is a main bath downstairs, we call that the dog's bathroom; he gets his baths there. There is a large bath upstairs that is Joan's and another in the master bedroom. Literally "in". Well it was until I put in a pocket door to close it off a little bit. There is a kitchen, den, living room and dining room-turned-office downstairs, and three bedrooms and a large reading area like a cat walk at the top of the foyer. It is more serene outside than in. We have a sheepdog. The house has "character." Supposedly the 5th oldest home in town, it was the original farmers house in the area. this is a very strange history and I have a hard time with the story as this area is notoriously rocky, wooded and quite hilly. The house was then the home of the town's pediatrician for many years, and was willed to her next-door neighbor upon her passing in 1985ish. The house was then razed and rebuilt on the original foundation in the late 1980's. They poured concrete over the original foundation, and some of the large carrying beams are original. However the basement is only 5 feet tall. Why on earth they didn't go up another 2 or 3 feet when rebuilding is beyond everyone's grasp. Well we know why -- the builder (his name was also Ron ) was a stubborn guy and among other things he didn't want to get a variance from the town, and rebuilt the house keeping at least one wall up at a time so it wasn't considered "new construction."
The staircase and foyer was designed with his daughter's wedding in mind. In the late 80's (I believe), his daughter became ill with a brain tumor and passed away. In 1990 and 1991 having mortgaged this property and being in the construction business during a bad dip in the housing market, Ron found himself unable to maintain the mortgage and refused to lower his asking price (which was way out of line) and the home was foreclosed upon. By 1992, Joan and I had been looking in this town and had fallen in love with the small town, the town center, the stone walls everywhere and the location was central to our needs for commuting. This home is on a fairly prominent street and we had passed by it several times in our house hunting travels. Once while being shuttled by an agent, we again passed the house and were again intrigued and asked about it. We were told it was "way out of our ballpark". Later in another realty office we were looking through a physical copy of the MLS book which is partly arranged by price and saw a house on this street, and a tiny tiny tiny black and white picture. Staring at it and trying to figure out which house it was... it suddenly dawned on us.... it was THAT house!!! In our price range!!! It was approximately 1/2 of the original asking price.
The realtor contacted the listing broker, and found out that it had been under agreement which had fallen through Thursday, had been put back on the market Friday and now it was Sunday and there were 2 offers. (This was basically at the very bottom of the real estate market here, so multiple offers below asking price were normal). We went to see it and it was the first house we both really liked. That was a miracle. Joan and I huddled and decided to offer the full asking price rather than risk losing out on a house with which we had both fallen in love. The offer was accepted by the bank much to the dismay of the listing broker, who just lost 1/2 of the commission. We had some difficulty in obtaining a mortgage but we did. I had only been working for a couple of months, and Joan's salary alone was not sufficient to carry the mortgage. When we went to closing, I couldn't help but notice that the typed loan origination documents that I was seeing for the first time listed my time at work as 22 months instead of 2 months as I had written on my application. I immediately realized this is how the originator got us approved so I casually put my hand over that part and pointed at the "dotted line" for Joan and said quietly, "sign here", not letting her read it. Joan would have mentioned the error had she seen it....
So that was 15 years ago. About 2 or 3 years later, maybe a few more, a house on the other side of town was on the market. It was on a hill and overlooked a backup reservoir for Boston, absolutely fantastic location, but it was a fairly plain ranch style with picture windows and slider leading out to a second floor deck in the back (due to the grade of the land). Our house had appreciated a little bit already, and it would have been a little bit of a stretch for us, which I wanted to investigate. I just knew the market was going up -- we were in a very desirable location West of Boston and around the high tech industries here. Joan said she wasn't interested in moving at all, so we never went any further than looking in the window. It is something I regret to this day, sort of. The house is still great -- with an unlimited budget there are all sorts of things that we could have done to it; there's an addition I always wanted to add, and that "Man's Room" or tons of great furniture, but our priorities have never been to be "house poor". We live extremely frugally and hope to retire young. Now the house is becoming a little too much for me to keep up, so we've been talking about selling and going condo. Too much info? |
| Not at all! I feel like I just saw an episode of a House show on HGTV. And I LOVE those shows!! |
I wanna see the post-kitchen remodel pics. 
Great house and property, Ron. |
| Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful and I enjoyed reading your history of the house |
| Loved the story, admire the house (don't love the house, but the maple, YES!) All I see with your house is painting and raking leaves. Better you than me! |
| Thanks Ron, that makes perfect sense to me! |
rdf wrote: I wanna see the post-kitchen remodel pics.
Me too |
| Ron, I loved hearing the history of your home and how you managed to obtain the morgage. Meant to be I think!
I've always loved your home and it is something I'd would consider my ultimate dream house. Wanna trade? If you find it hard for the upkeep I could come and live with you and Joan! Nyuck Nyuck! Of course I'd have to bring Blue, Merlin, Panda (the dogs), LG, Paris, Asia, Daisy, and Thomas the cats, Laurel, Willow, Aspen, Muppet, Big Momma, Arthur and Puff the bunnies, Squeak and William the Guinea Pigs. Petunia, Spike, Autumn the foster kittens, and Elly Mae the broken pelvis foster cat. You have the room!!! We're coming down! PS ahhh don't worry I don't eat much! I can help you build your mans room! Seriously Ron if I win the lotto I'm buying your house. Okay? You have the most beautiful home and yard! Thanks for sharing those photos with us. Marianne |
| shame on you....i cant believe that you didnt take any after pictures of the kitchen!!!!
Ill come help you clean, but you wont like it....i make people throw out at least 50% of what they think they ''needed''....instead of the year plan, i go with the six month plan...if its not used in six months ...out it goes! |
| Marianne, if *I* hit it big, we can talk too! Of course I'd have to start buying at least one ticket once in a while... Unfortunately, I don't think all of your critters would like the northeast winters. We'll have to have a heated barn for Riviera East.
All of the little things, Darcy, like cheese slicers and corkscrews and stuff like that too? I use them once in a blue moon, but when you need one... Are you going to make me buy boxed wine for the glass of wine I want every 5 years? |
| Ron your home and yard are beautiful!!!!!! I am sure your really enjoy it. |
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