Renovation Photos

I'm so excited! My home looks like new on the outside. The bulk of the outside work is done. We just need a new steel door with a window in it for the back alcove and new gutters all around (coming this week), and my husband Ed will have to reface the doors to our "barn" and garden house. Here's the "before" shot of the front of the house, when it was decorated for Halloween, and plenty of "after" shots, taken with Ed's cell phone camera. If you notice any waviness in the photos, it's not in the siding; it's funkiness from resizing the photos. Clicking on them will open up larger versions that don't have any waviness.



The house before renovation, wearing its old red cedar shake shingles; the bushes wore Halloween decorations, including cobwebs





Front of house with siding, which looks grayish here but is a beautiful soft moss green





Another front view





The new front stairs: These take the place of the narrow, crumbling, old cement stairs. There's so much more room now, even though the new stairs are only about 2 to 3 feet wider. No more feeling as if I'm going to fall off the stoop when the boys crowd me while I'm trying to unlock the front door!





Side view of the new front stairs, which are made from pressure-treated wood so that they're rot-resistant. We won't paint them but will let them weather to a pretty silver.





The redone tiny alcove (used as a holding room for recyclables and bags of garbage) and stairs at the back of the house





Another view of the back alcove and stairs; the alcove door is on order





The north side of the house. The latticework, like the new front stairs, is made of pressure-treated wood. It's been in place for several years and has already weathered to a nice silver





This is the south side of the house, which houses our wood shop. When Ed had his own cabinetmaking business, the shop was where he built furniture and cabinets.





This is our "barn," where, when Ed had his business, he would spray lacquer on furniture and cabinets. Now, it's mostly for storage, but Ed does use it when he makes furniture for us. The red Formica on the doors has to be replaced by the light green Formica we bought to match the siding. The barn used to be covered with red cedar shingles, just like the house.





Even our tiny garden house (what most people call a tool shed) got new siding, and after 30-plus years, it got a new roof. It still needs its dark door refaced. You can see our vegetable garden's fence running the length of the left side of the photo. The ancient, rotting boat at the right was Ed's first outboard, a little wooden dory from the late 1950s that Ed restored; he bought it when he was 15 years old. The boat, now retired, is older than Ed is. It's been replaced by the At Last! and must be moved to the town dump.



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