Renovations

This year was a year of renovations, and since our house is almost 20 years old, it's about time. Our fix-ups started in early summer and came in two varieties: Those not related to hail, and those caused by hail. The nice thing was that the second group, which was much more expensive, was mostly paid for by insurance. Here's a round up of a few of the things we fixed.

Not Related to Hail

Just after school let out, Dad decided that he could not let the front door go another minute without being repainted. We'd been looking at that old scratched and faded door for a while, and it was finally time to fix it. The plastic shutters by the front window looked almost as bad, so we wondered about painting those, too. Remarkably, we were able to find the exact same shutters. The replacement went off without a hitch, and suddenly things looked brand new!

We forgot a before picture. You would not believe how faded they were.

With the chicks quickly growing into chickens, we also wanted our yard fully fenced again. Since the chain link keeping the cows out had been replaced by a neighbor, our yard had been open. We got together with the two neighbors who share the fence line and got that taken care of. We even fixed the baseball-sized holes (caused by baseballs) in the damaged areas of the fence.

See the new white fence behind the coop?

We finally painted that dark, earthy tone out of the basement. It is much brighter now. We chose a gray that is very close to white and did most of the house including the basement, living room, and hallway to the bedrooms. We even had the trim painted and it looks amazing.

It was not fun living like this.

But we love the new paint.

It really made the house look brand new inside.

Our last project, and the one that almost put us over the edge was refinishing the wood floors in the kitchen and entryway. To do this, we had to live for a week with the dishwasher on the counter, the refrigerator in the living room, and the oven on the back deck. Due to the sanding there was a lot of dust. Worst of all, getting that fridge down, and back up, the steps required 7 large men because it is too wide to make the turn. It was quite an adventure, but the new floor is perfect.

We love the way the new floors turned out.

We went to a very natural looking stain.

And they don't have any big scratches any more.

Such good neighbors who helped us move the fridge up and down.

Related to the Hail

Our insurance company came out and took pictures of a lot of damage. Then we got an itemized report of what they would pay to replace. Key among those things was the roof. Our friend recommended a good roofer and he really was good. He under-bid what the insurance company sent, and then he stripped the roof rather than just doubling up shingles. His crew also did the shed in the back, finally adding a drip edge. Then Dad was just finishing the chicken coop roof, and they shingled that, too. We even got new downspouts.

New shingles and you can see the newly painted door and shutters.

Speaking of the chicken coop, it got damaged by the hail, too. It is just a small chick raising coop about the size of our loveseat, but it easily housed our four birds. Still, they gave us a bit of money to replace it. Though we spent far more putting together a much nicer, larger coop, it was fun for Dad. He'd never built anything like this before, and despite a few restarts and rethinks, it turned out really nice. 

Randy built this beautiful coop! It is amazing!

The hail sand-blasted the paint right off certain parts of the house, too. The trim around the doors was damaged, and the shed was practically "unpainted." This meant significant time spent repainting, and the new chicken coop added to the job. That was okay, because all of this needed done anyway. The worst part by far was stripping the old paint before adding the new. The results look great, though, and our 20 year old house was certainly due for the upgrades!

The trim needed redone and looks so good.