Thursday, March 10, 2011

The house before and after refinishing, summer 2010

I took on the job of sanding and refinishing the house this summer. Michael got some quotes on labor, then we decided to pretend to pay me and I got to work. ;-) Here are a few pics of the wear and tear the poor house was experiencing. What with hefty north winds, driving rain and snow, the north side of the house was really hurting. Mind you, this part of the house hadn't been touched in 6 years. oops!

North side of the garage
Check out that Northwest corner...totally grayed from a combination of hot west sun and the sprinkler hitting it.



South side of Great room...

Looking up at weathering...

Right side of pic is where we stack firewood, so it's dinged up. Left side of pic begins the addition which was refinished last year.
South side dining..
South side garage 1/2 sanded (above) and fully sanded (below)
South side Great room sanded and starting to recoat with Sashco Transformation
One day, I posted on Facebook,  "Off to climb the big ladder, and it's not the corporate one!" HaHa!
Michael finished most of the really high stuff after I told him one day, "You know, I was up on the extension ladder today, and the thought flitted through my head; 'what if I fell?'" I was home alone with the kids, up on a 20ft ladder on a wooden deck. If I fell, would Jonathan know how to phone for help? I promptly climbed down, called him to me, showed him where my phone was and taught him how to unlock the keys and call Daddy or 911. And every time the rest of the summer, if I HAD to get on the extension ladder, I made sure the kids knew and were out by me.
Sanded wall, beginning to lay stain. Doesn't it look good?!
Refinished Great room wall
Looking northwest at the corner between the Dining and Great rooms. The Great room has it's new coat and the Dining room is about to get it's!
Later in the summer with the Library alcove and Sunroom sporting a new coat of finish.
East end of the garage, partly sanded

This is Darla with her handy dandy new prosthesis! A Random Orbital Sander. Check out the link...mine even came with a carrying case! Sweet! My ROS and I became good friends...
And this is how Darla looked a good portion of the summer...sawdust all over the face, in the hair, up the nose, covering the clothes...yup! Even when the kids wanted to take a bike ride down to the stop sign and back, Mommy just dusted off the worst of it, saddled up and we rode. A FaceBook post said this, "Cucumber green tea facial, brown sugar scrub, hot oil hair treatment...what do you REALLY have over 5 hours of sawdust blasting? Methinks not much...;-)"
 

5 comments:

Wishful Thinking said...

Wow what a huge amount of work! Looks great though. Grinning to myself at you covered in dust hehee :-)

Jen said...

It looks great! It's amazing the difference, isn't it? Sometimes, too, it seems like you can find yourself thinking, "Oh, it doesn't look THAT bad!!" and then you re-do it and wowza!! :) Great job, Darla! :)

Sandra Ramey said...

What a huge job...good work!

Caroline said...

Yes, Darla, what a massive job and it looks fantastic! I think you are wonderful too, that you stuck to it! So easy to want to give up half way through... Good job!
Love Caroline

Anonymous said...

Does a few days late responding to your amazing job, mean I'm a dollar short? Yowza! Amazing job! You are like super woman, super momma, super duper cycler extraordinaire! I need to take lessons from ya, Darla! Your house is awesome!