The final reveal!

I realize now that I probably should have been blogging about this through the whole process because now I have so much to tell you and oh so many pictures!  When we moved in the home inspector told us that the T1-11 siding that is on the house was recalled at some point but ours had not been replaced.  We could see where previous owners had not kept up on the paint and the bottom of the siding was rotting away.  But it was a small thing to worry about at the time we were buying the house, and even still, the deal we got was worth the need for new siding.  Finally, we decided this summer was the summer to replace the bad siding and paint the house, so of course we will start with the obligatory BEFORE pictures:

Front:

Back:

East side:

 We started in June with Bryce slaving away on removing bad siding.  And of course under the bad siding was.....MORE bad siding!  Yay!  So he had to put up new plywood in those spots and cover it with new T1-11 siding.  And then I had to paint it.  This first picture is the back of the house where we did not have to do any new siding, but still had to prep.  I especially love this picture because at this point the house was about 7 different colors between the original, old, and new siding, and the four different colors I painted on the house to try and decide what the new color would be!

Of course Dietrich helped with the pressure washing

We strive to look our best when working outside...

 And always make children help

 Here you can see the original siding that was under the siding we had when we moved in.

 I painted and painted and painted, I stood on the roof of this giant house and painted.

 I painted in the hot hot sun, in the dark, and today I painted in the rain.

 I wanted to make sure our fruit and veggie box made it to our house! A little purple duct tape (it's still there, but under the beautiful new siding).

 The back was the first side done and it was pretty exciting to see the new color!

 After replacing the bad siding on the sides of the house and the chimneys Bryce moved to the front.  When he removed the trim around the front windows he discovered that the sill plates under the window were rotten.  We had a window company come and estimate new windows, $500-$700, so we decided to take out the old windows VERY CAREFULLY, replace the sill plates, and put the windows back in, VERY CAREFULLY.

 Of course Bryce was successful, although it was incredibly scary...to me anyway.  This lovely scaffolding lived in front of the house for far too long, but then Bryce put up beautiful new lap siding on the front of the house.  Bryce helped me choose a totally different color for the lap siding, which made me very nervous at first, but the guy at the paint store said the colors went together well and I decided, it's just paint, I could do it again if I HAD too...

In case you were wondering, this is what happens when you try to paint with a three year old around.  Green paint on my fresh brown paint...

I took this picture because I was so proud of myself for moving the ladder from one side of the house to the front and setting it back up.  It wasn't pretty and I may have hurt myself, but I did it.  Only this once, after this I tried to only paint when Bryce was around to move the ladder for me.  Or if I only had to slide it around not totally move it.

After months of siding and painting, bruised shins from standing on ladders, Bryce needing to see a physical therapist (hence the backbrace) and paint permanently adhered to my skin, we thought we were done!

After Back:

East side, West side

The shed, so cute!

And Finally, after one small color change above the garage we are DONE! (you know other than the front porch needs painted and the red door isn't really the right red now...)

So finally, here it is!  

This goes down as the LONGEST most difficult project in the history of Our House.  Bryce spent weekends and evenings whenever we were home working on the siding, putting up trim and still to come, new gutters.  Grammy and Darby watched children so I could paint for hours, I woke up at 6 many mornings to paint before the kids woke up, and sometimes I watched them play from the top of a ladder and asked them to help "paint" with water and their own paintbrushes. Today our neighbor told us the house has "never looked better" I couldn't agree more!

Fourth of July (a million photos)

We spent the 4th of July weekend in Ione and it worked out that Aunt Cynthia, Uncle Don and cousins Emily and Adam were all there too.  We had high hopes of leaving by 10 on the morning of the 4th but for some reason it always takes me way long to get out of the house than I think it should.  But we arrived at mom's by early afternoon and the rest of the family wasn't very far behind us.  We started out the celebration by sharing a bottle of Megan's wine with everyone.  Everybody loved it!

Mom and Steve bought a bag full of fun kid's "fireworks" including all your reminiscent of childhood favorites: Snakes, pop-it's, tanks, bees, and parachutes.  We were out of firecrackers for our favorite "Grandpa" firework-in-a-can-in-a-tub-of-water, so we will have to save that for next year I guess.

                             

 Dietrich really liked the bees, here he is picking out another one.

 He hid behind the chair while Daddy lit off the fireworks.

 Cousin Adam shared his sparklers with us, Dietrich thought they were really fun!

 Then Papa Steve remembered that his Son-in-Law left big fireworks last time he was here for the 4th.  So we got a great show with probably 8-10 of the really big ones.  Dietrich would get nervous every time one was lit, I would help him cover his ears and as soon as it went he would clap and cheer "Yay!!! It's over now?"  He only kind of liked it I guess.  

The next day we headed out on the lake!

 Dietrich shared his sweet dance moves with us.

 And since Lenorah started the trip by throwing her mimi overboard we put it on a leash so she couldn't lose it again.  It's still there for next time.

We barely made it home in time for a crazy storm of hail and rain to start!

 Saturday morning we had a very important project to accomplish.  The painting of Grandma Bonnie's garage.  I noticed when we stopped by earlier this spring that it needed done so I told Grandma we could do it in a weekend sometime during the summer.  This past weekend is one of the few we will be able to make it to Ione this summer so we took advantage.  We were also super lucky to have the rest of the family here to help.  With 6 painters, one entertainer of small children, 2 lunch makers and one screaming baby we had the whole garage painted in 3 hours!!!

Here is Lenorah looking awesome in a vintage stroller circa 1982 (mine).

 Dietrich was an awesome painter and "boss" to cousin Emily, they painted with water of course.

 Whoo-hoo she slept!  So we could get some painting done.

 And then we were back on the water!  Yee-haw!!  It was the most perfect day, we didn't get off the lake until 7:30!

 She is a water baby!

 Grandma Jane jumped off the bridge (gasp!) it was so fun!  And I dove off the bridge which I've never done in my 21 years of jumping off the thing.  Whoo-hoo! Also, the lake is incredibly warm for this time of year.  It was strange and wonderful!

 And it all ended back at home with this cuteness passing out in her crib before we even turned the light off.

The weather was amazing, the kids were so good, the family was fun and the beer was cold.  I hope your 4th was awesome too!