The DW and I were walking through Lowes one day when we noticed a good price on some basic white exterior paint. The exterior of the house is a cement-board-type siding that was probably installed in the 40’s and had never been painted. It needed it. So we threw 10 gallons of paint in the cart — that was over two years ago.

Cosmetically, painting the house was a priority. In reality, it wasn’t a priority until we had the new roof installed this spring and realized that the siding, as well as the roof, had been leaking all along. The abnormally dry weather we experienced during the first 18 months after we moved in didn’t allow for us to see the chronic leaks. We saw the water damage when we moved in, but were told the leaks were fixed… hmmm, maybe not. We had repaired the water damage and while it was dry there were no issues. Needles to say, this fall was earmarked for one project… the exterior. Vinyl siding – like we did with the dormers – would be ideal, but we don’t want to take that step until we have the garage added on – plus, we already own 10 gallons of paint.

So, where to start? Knowing that we were now water proofing instead of just painting, the first step involved re-caulking around all of the windows, any questionable siding seams, miscellaneous holes, and anything else that looked suspicious. Basically, every square inch of siding needed to be checked. Thankfully, since my dad is no longer watching Peanut on a daily basis he volunteered to tackle the task earlier this fall. After using almost two cases of silicon, things are considerably tighter.

With the cracks filled, it was time to break out the paint brushes.

Over the last few weekends – when not in the hospital with Peanut – we’ve slowly worked our way around the house as the weather permitted. You’d think rain would be the only real hamper on the project, but we’ve actually lost more time to the box elder bug infestation than rain. On the warm, sunny days, the bugs flock to the south side of the house making painting impossible.

Just a few more hours of decent, bug-free, weather and this will be one more project off the list.