Things Are Starting to Come Together.....

My brother and I have made great progress over the last few weeks on my house.  First off, the rock work is done!  This took far longer than I was expecting but it really makes the front of the house.  I had purchased three pallets of stone and only used one of them so the rest will be used on a retaining wall and outdoor fireplace that I will build next summer.  I also have completed the last railing which can be seen in the below picture.  I have done a little more trim painting but still have a couple more coats to go.  I am going from white trim to a dark brown so it takes many coats. I can really only paint when the surface is over 45 degrees so this time of year I can only paint in the afternoons.  I also started painting the downspouts which you can see in the pictures in this post.  Over the next week I will do all the touch-up painting on the front of the house. 

I also recently finished some trim around the windows.  The trim is exterior siding that I cut down and screwed to the side of the house.  After filling the holes, caulking around the edges, and painting it looks real good.  I will add new shutters later.

The bottom of the trim around the windows is not yet completed.  This is because I will be getting a new roof in the next week or so.  The materials are backordered so it had delayed things a couple weeks.  Here is a picture of the shingle I have chosen.  I am pretty excited about it because the roof I have now looks terrible with the new paint color and I have always hated this roof color.  I had to file an insurance claim but basically I am getting a brand new roof for my $1,000 deductible.

The big project I worked on today was relocating my downspouts.  I re-routed the spout on the front gutter to the left side because the old spout didn't work with my new columns.  I did not want the water dumping out next to the foundation like it did before so I re-routed it to dump out on the driveway and flow down to the street.  I have a planter bed where the end of the spout was to be  so I dug into the ground a pipe to have it flow around the corner of the house.  You can see where the pipe is in the ground in the following picture.

I then had the pipe dump out through my stone retaining wall so it is not visible.  It is really only a project that I will ever notice but it turned out cool. 

The other big project has been the start of the arbor above the garage doors.  All of the cross braces have been bolted to the side of the house and are made out of cedar.  The front boards are pine 2x8s.  I have to use pine because cedar can warp as it is not as dense of a wood and with the long spans I need a denser wood like pine.  Everything will be coated in a solid color stain so it will all look the same when it is completed.  I still have all the top braces to add and will hopefully get that completed this week as well.  

Well that is all for now; it will not be long until the blog starts looking at the interior so get ready!