It all started with a conversation about a small wallpaper flap hanging down near a ceiling beam in our family room. A water leak had caused the wallpaper to come away from the wall, the result of imperfect construction of the family room addition years and years ago. We had lived with the occasional wet wall all that time, even replacing the wallpaper once upon a time without attending to the underlying problem. Once again, we decided simply to treat the symptoms, not the underlying issue, by stripping off the wallpaper and painting the wall itself. We felt we could live with the once-in-a-blue-moon dribble as long as the water would dry without staining the wall.
While we were contemplated that project, we decided to have the basement walls and floor painted as well. The floor had last been painted decades ago and was in need of a good "freshening up".
Then, as Spring turned to early Summer, the city's housing inspector visited Braemar Road as part of a once-every-seven-year neighborhood external inspection program. Shortly thereafter we received a citation requiring several repairs and the painting of the entire exterior, a project we had anticipated waiting until 2013 to undertake.
In between our various travels over the course of the following months, we had those external home repairs completed (a garage soffit shored up; a loose wire link to the garage, reattached; a garage door panel replaced; porch and entry pillar bases rebuilt) and contracted Curb Appeal to paint the entire house and the garage.
Meanwhile next door neighbor Richard Pietro replaced the screens on our side porch and attached a trellis, and we added a bamboo sunscreen to shield us from the early morning sun. Lee was inspired to rip out the mock orange bushes that had struggled to survive for decades along the south side of the garage.
Then we decided to bite the bullet and attend to the family room leak. Once that job was completed, we had all the windows professionally washed, inside and out, and reseeded some spots on the front lawn that hadn't survived the summer drought.
With all that accomplished, we can now look forward to returning in early November to a home likely never in better shape -- as is the entire neighborhood (in the wake of that neighborhood inspection process).
(Home) Life is Good!
While we were contemplated that project, we decided to have the basement walls and floor painted as well. The floor had last been painted decades ago and was in need of a good "freshening up".
Then, as Spring turned to early Summer, the city's housing inspector visited Braemar Road as part of a once-every-seven-year neighborhood external inspection program. Shortly thereafter we received a citation requiring several repairs and the painting of the entire exterior, a project we had anticipated waiting until 2013 to undertake.
In between our various travels over the course of the following months, we had those external home repairs completed (a garage soffit shored up; a loose wire link to the garage, reattached; a garage door panel replaced; porch and entry pillar bases rebuilt) and contracted Curb Appeal to paint the entire house and the garage.
Meanwhile next door neighbor Richard Pietro replaced the screens on our side porch and attached a trellis, and we added a bamboo sunscreen to shield us from the early morning sun. Lee was inspired to rip out the mock orange bushes that had struggled to survive for decades along the south side of the garage.
Then we decided to bite the bullet and attend to the family room leak. Once that job was completed, we had all the windows professionally washed, inside and out, and reseeded some spots on the front lawn that hadn't survived the summer drought.With all that accomplished, we can now look forward to returning in early November to a home likely never in better shape -- as is the entire neighborhood (in the wake of that neighborhood inspection process).
(Home) Life is Good!
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