1 Before- south Note the damage to the trim, the unevenness of the siding along the bottom... the general crappiness of it all.
2 Before- south and east Here's a shot of the front from the street- see that pink and off-white? Can you even make out the house numbers above the garage?
3 Before- east Here you get a good idea of what the front of the house looks like to the world. Peaches and cream- ugh.
4 Before- east front door Note the columns and the front door- with a screen door and a spanish sort of look to the door itself.
5 Before- east Here's the front from a different angle. We'd had the windows replaced a couple of years ago.
6 Before- west Note the crappy state of the siding and the home patch job- carpenter ants had gotten to the panel around that first story window. You can also see the damage around the chimney.
7 Before- west patio cover Look at how jacked up that all is! It's got to go.
8 Before- west patio When we had that back door put in (replacing the sliding glass door) it was the best thing about this side of the house. We'd never painted it, which was just as well.
9 Before- west patio You can see how the patio cover meets partway up the roof. Another challenge was working around the deck.
10 Before- west patio chimney You get a good idea of the color scheme here. Ugh. Also, the patio cover was a wasp magnet.
11 Before- west patio door Notice how the roof shingles are brown? And how they were grey in all the other shots? Re-roofing happened after that patio cover went up.
12 During- north This was tearing the stuff off; they often just hit it with the claw side of the hammer and it pulled off like wet cardboard.
13 During- north Check out the insulation- brown paper bag paper!
14 During- west They've started putting the siding up- pale green Hardiplank. Underneath they wrapped the house with reflective radiant barrier, which we called space foil.
15 During- west patio The patio roof is gone. The chimney looks a lot better already. You can see where they pulled up some planks on the deck.
16 During- west patio Here's some of the space foil.
17 During- east and north Hardiplank is, according to Wikipedia, a composite material made of sand, cement and cellulose fibers. It makes the house effectively fireproof.
18 During- east and north Here's a closer shot. They replaced a lot of the trim where it was damaged. The stuff on the east side of the house was not replaced since it was mostly protected, the same stuff as the Hardiplank, and in excellent shape- they just painted it to match.
19 Front door interior Our new front door! The other one was sticking, and Eric thinks it was because someone had tried to break in and damaged it.
20 During- east patio The columns were torn down and rebuilt, and insulated for some reason- I'm guessing to lessen the chance of water damage. You'll see the new light by the door soon; check out the old one here for contrast.
21 After- south Here's the finished product with the trim painted. You can also see the stuff underneath the overhanging roof- we're told it's wasp-proof. Yay!
22 After- south A longer shot of the south and some of the garage. They painted the garage door too.
23 After- south and east Now you can see the house numbers!
24 After- south and east Here's the front of the house from the street (along with my car Homer and Eric's Acura).
25 After- front patio They power washed the siding here and painted it to match, and the front door and columns too.
26 After- front door Eric also replaced the light by the door with something that matched a little better. Note St.Francis.
27 After- east and north They even painted the vents and the trim around them, here visible through the trees.
28 After- north I was impressed with how tightly they were able to fit the siding around all the little bits sticking out of the house, like the gas meter here.
29 After- east Here's a close shot of the stuff under the roof- it's called the soffit. They had limited colors, so we went with this almond color, which works fine.
30 After- west What an improvement. You can see the bubble on the roof where we had a little skylight put in, too.
31 After- west Here's the overhang where the patio roof used to be. It gets a lot of sun in the middle of the day, but it's pretty well-shaded in the late afternoon.
32 After- west patio They painted our back door too. Of course, now I'm thinking the deck needs some serious attention.
33 After- roof Here's a close shot of the chimney, where you can see the fake wood grain pattern. There's also the bubble of the skylight, and the re-shingled part of the roof that matches fairly well.
34 Interior For the heck of it, here's some interior shots that show how well the skylight lights up our living room. It was a dark cave before.
35 Interior Behold our living room layout, and the very cool tile tables Eric made.
36 Interior Note also the annoyed eldest cat, Bolt.
37 Interior The light is diffused, but it's still really bright. I had thought we might need two of the skylights to light up the living room, but one was plenty.
