We decided it is time to paint the house, and if this is to get done at all…we will need to complete the project in the next few weeks.  Derek starts back to school in August/September (I can’t honestly remember).  I’m sure not going to paint that dang house by myself; unless using a can of spray paint will suffice.  In that case, the brick, siding, and trim will all be a nice glossy black!  Over the past year we have repaired a few minor imperfections to the exterior of the house, but have only gotten around to priming these areas.

While prepping the house for a makeover, we inspected the exterior of the house for any wood that may need replacing before the BIG PAINT.  Lucky us, we found that one of the bay window’s exterior wood was not exactly wood, but interior paneling.  YEA!!!!  Obviously one of the previous owners repaired this window at some point, and thought that using an indoor material to repair the outside of the house would be a smart defense against rain, snow, mildew, mold, and other glorious nasties one would dream to have growing in their walls.  From a distance, being shielded by a curtain of shrubs, the window’s paneling looked fine, but within 5ft of the window you begin to see the moldy horror.

Upon Derek’s initial inspection the paneling was mushy, and appeared to have mildew/mold growing on it.  So, Derek purchased “real” wood, cut it to length, and preceded to remove the nasty old paneling.  After he removed the 1st of two layers of the paneling, knowing my phobia of slugs, Derek called me outside to show me the slug breeding farm lurking just below the 1st layer of paneling.  THANKS BABE…I OWE YOU ONE.

Those little nasties are just icky and slimy.  I swear we have some that are a solid 5 inches in length.  5 inches…that’s got to be some sort of a record, or a genetic mutation at very least. I told Derek not to dump those chemicals in the ditch next to our house.  I mean it was only time till we had slugs the size of stray cats, and stray cats the size of St. Bernards. SERIOUSLY.

Throughout the day Saturday the front yard looked more like a trailer park yard sale as opposed to a quaint mid-century neighborhood.

I guess Derek decided to use this bush as a seat.

By the end of a long, hot Saturday Derek had successfully replaced the paneling with proper symmetrical wood boards.  I helped him caulk, and prime the boards once he finished.  We made sure these board were watertight.  So much that the house would have to flood from the inside, and the water would have to build up so high that it seeped down through the window sill, flow down into the plaster walls, and wet the board from behind to even begin to water-log these babies.

Next step :: paint everything else.

Here are some pictures from our snowy weekend.