Lemonjello meets the window. Their new favorite place. Shortly afterward, the window sill was repainted so that it looked as new as the window.

Notice my neighbor's deck! What deck, you say? It's covered in kudzu! It used to be a 2-level deck, but then hurricane + house condemnation = removal. Anyway, the way we eventually solved the "homeowners insurance getting dropped 3 times" problem was to ask her what they used for her house. :)

Lemonjello the cat, house maintenance, kudzu, living room window, radiator.

side yard, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

BACKSTORY: So our homeowners insurance (Farmers) got dropped due to having peeling paint on our window sills (among other things). Weak. It was a LOT of work AND money for us to repaint all our sills. Wood windows SUCK!! Modern vinyl windows are MAINTANENCE-FREE!! Wood windows... You gotta re-glaze the panes when they fall out, and then the wood itself is always going to slowly rot away. We already had our cats knock a pane out, so we already had glazing compound for pane repairs. This came in handy when we painted our various window sills, as some also needed glazing compound.

So the largest window in our house -- actually 3 windows -- was a major pain, and one of the few single-pane windows in the house. It would leak heat/cold in the summer/winter, and looked really bad compared to the new siding we had installed 6 or so years ago. So we decided to go ahead and replace just this window (actually 3 separate windows). Man was it expensive! $2,350! Thompson Creek had the best pitch and data, whereas Home Depot required $30 up front for an appointment they never showed up for and a list of 4 phone numbers to escalate (all 4 failed). So we had Thompson Creek do it of course! They did it, said they did it wrong, made us wait a month while making a new window (pro: they are all custom-made just for you; con: they are all custom-made, so a screw-up requires waiting for a new one to be made), then installed the new window, and finally everything was good and we were satisfied.

It was just kind of a pain because it cost so much money and had our living room in disarray for so many months, and the whole insurance basis for the situation was pretty bullshitty in the first place. We're not going to make a property damage claim due to moisture that occurs because our paint was peeling! Ridiculous...

The "utility side" of our house, with all its glorious wires. I mainly took this picture to illustrate the soffit/roof edge on this side of the house. It remains unpainted, because all those wires are dangerous, and I don't feel like painting inches away from a live electrical wire. You can see the grey I painted on the very edges -- as far as my arms could reach from the corner -- but at no point was any ladder ever rested against this wall. And that side of the roof is pretty scary compared to the middle of the roof. So that part doesn't get painted.

Who was the moron who used bright orange wires outside? Daniel M. Lopez's idiotic underlings at Virginia Design Builders, who were no longer licensed after fucking our job up, missing the contract deadline, the new deadline, and the deadline after that, and getting fined by the state. Watch out for any Hispanic construction companies operating out of Laurel, MD that employ anyone with the name Lopez, because from what I could gather, his children are continuing his legacy of idiocy. If they are as retarded as the monkeys who took over 3 years to perform a 3 month addition contract, then they are probably still screwing people to this day. These people took 40 man hours to install a new heating unit! (I've asked around, and most non-retarded non-monkeys say it's a one day job.) I had an "inspection passed" sticker placed on a circuit breaker box that had never been inspected. Daniel M. Lopez was arrested for theft of subcontractor funds, and I visited the police to talk to them bout him. I wonder how the $400K lawsuit against Daniel M. Lopez (from other people who claimed to us on the phone that they were tricked into buying OUR construction materials) is doing. Hopefully he lost and faced bankruptcy, but I doubt it. I'd love to protest at Lopez's funeral, likeWestboro Baptist Church does. Only my protest would not be based on his lifestyle choice and my hate of it due to an imaginary sky fairy, but based on him bringing actual misery and massive financial damage, unhappiness, and marital problems to many couples -- some of which I've spoken with at length about him. If this comment sounds racist, well -- situations like these are what cause people to be racist. And it's not like the workers in my house didn't make it a point to tell me they didn't like black people (my brother in law at the time was black, but it's offensive to hear whether or not I have black family). And another screwed subcontractor came to my house yelling, "I thought I could trust him because he was Mexican! But he's a fucking Indian!" (My builder was Mexican Native American.) What the fuck! You're a minority; learn that it sucks and don't foist that same suckage and judgment on others. Sorry. Got on a little side-rant about race, because I can just imagine how this caption might be interpreted negatively by some people (esp if you're Hispanic--sorry). I call the people who worked on my house retarded monkeys not because of their race, but because they were uneducated idiots who screwed every possible thing up -- like installing a thermostat so high Carolyn couldn't see the display, having a floor made out of pieces of wood that were fucking trapezoids and shit that makes no sense, bringing a tractor-trailer-sized dumpster of other people's trash from other jobs and leaving it in our driveway until we called a tow company, creating a roof that makes it so that when it rains, it rains inside, etc, etc, etc, etc.

So yeah, that orange wire makes me pretty angry. Use some fucking common sense. The west side of my house is ugly enough without making it worse.

Lemonjello the cat, Oranjello the cat, attic vent, bricks, gutters, house maintenance, living room window, soffit, well, wires.

roof, side yard, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

October 14, 2011.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

BACKSTORY: So our homeowners insurance (Farmers) got dropped due to having peeling paint on our window sills (among other things). Weak. It was a LOT of work AND money for us to repaint all our sills. Wood windows SUCK!! Modern vinyl windows are MAINTANENCE-FREE!! Wood windows... You gotta re-glaze the panes when they fall out, and then the wood itself is always going to slowly rot away. We already had our cats knock a pane out, so we already had glazing compound for pane repairs. This came in handy when we painted our various window sills, as some also needed glazing compound.

So the largest window in our house -- actually 3 windows -- was a major pain, and one of the few single-pane windows in the house. It would leak heat/cold in the summer/winter, and looked really bad compared to the new siding we had installed 6 or so years ago. So we decided to go ahead and replace just this window (actually 3 separate windows). Man was it expensive! $2,350! Thompson Creek had the best pitch and data, whereas Home Depot required $30 up front for an appointment they never showed up for and a list of 4 phone numbers to escalate (all 4 failed). So we had Thompson Creek do it of course! They did it, said they did it wrong, made us wait a month while making a new window (pro: they are all custom-made just for you; con: they are all custom-made, so a screw-up requires waiting for a new one to be made), then installed the new window, and finally everything was good and we were satisfied.

It was just kind of a pain because it cost so much money and had our living room in disarray for so many months, and the whole insurance basis for the situation was pretty bullshitty in the first place. We're not going to make a property damage claim due to moisture that occurs because our paint was peeling! Ridiculous...

After 4-6 hours of 2 people scraping.

scraping.

house maintenance, living room window, peeling paint.

side yard, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

May 27, 2011.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

BACKSTORY: So our homeowners insurance (Farmers) got dropped due to having peeling paint on our window sills (among other things). Weak. It was a LOT of work AND money for us to repaint all our sills. Wood windows SUCK!! Modern vinyl windows are MAINTANENCE-FREE!! Wood windows... You gotta re-glaze the panes when they fall out, and then the wood itself is always going to slowly rot away. We already had our cats knock a pane out, so we already had glazing compound for pane repairs. This came in handy when we painted our various window sills, as some also needed glazing compound.

So the largest window in our house -- actually 3 windows -- was a major pain, and one of the few single-pane windows in the house. It would leak heat/cold in the summer/winter, and looked really bad compared to the new siding we had installed 6 or so years ago. So we decided to go ahead and replace just this window (actually 3 separate windows). Man was it expensive! $2,350! Thompson Creek had the best pitch and data, whereas Home Depot required $30 up front for an appointment they never showed up for and a list of 4 phone numbers to escalate (all 4 failed). So we had Thompson Creek do it of course! They did it, said they did it wrong, made us wait a month while making a new window (pro: they are all custom-made just for you; con: they are all custom-made, so a screw-up requires waiting for a new one to be made), then installed the new window, and finally everything was good and we were satisfied.

It was just kind of a pain because it cost so much money and had our living room in disarray for so many months, and the whole insurance basis for the situation was pretty bullshitty in the first place. We're not going to make a property damage claim due to moisture that occurs because our paint was peeling! Ridiculous...

Before we started using stripping compound (ultimately spending >$50 on tons of it), we stripped using only elbow grease. This was after we spent maybe 2-3 hours of 2 people scraping.

scraping.

house maintenance, living room window, peeling paint.

side yard, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

May 27, 2011.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

BACKSTORY: So our homeowners insurance (Farmers) got dropped due to having peeling paint on our window sills (among other things). Weak. It was a LOT of work AND money for us to repaint all our sills. Wood windows SUCK!! Modern vinyl windows are MAINTANENCE-FREE!! Wood windows... You gotta re-glaze the panes when they fall out, and then the wood itself is always going to slowly rot away. We already had our cats knock a pane out, so we already had glazing compound for pane repairs. This came in handy when we painted our various window sills, as some also needed glazing compound.

So the largest window in our house -- actually 3 windows -- was a major pain, and one of the few single-pane windows in the house. It would leak heat/cold in the summer/winter, and looked really bad compared to the new siding we had installed 6 or so years ago. So we decided to go ahead and replace just this window (actually 3 separate windows). Man was it expensive! $2,350! Thompson Creek had the best pitch and data, whereas Home Depot required $30 up front for an appointment they never showed up for and a list of 4 phone numbers to escalate (all 4 failed). So we had Thompson Creek do it of course! They did it, said they did it wrong, made us wait a month while making a new window (pro: they are all custom-made just for you; con: they are all custom-made, so a screw-up requires waiting for a new one to be made), then installed the new window, and finally everything was good and we were satisfied.

It was just kind of a pain because it cost so much money and had our living room in disarray for so many months, and the whole insurance basis for the situation was pretty bullshitty in the first place. We're not going to make a property damage claim due to moisture that occurs because our paint was peeling! Ridiculous...

Oranjello meets the window. Their new favorite place. Shortly afterward, the window sill was repainted so that it looked as new as the window.

Notice my neighbor's deck! What deck, you say? It's covered in kudzu! It used to be a 2-level deck, but then hurricane + house condemnation = removal. Anyway, the way we eventually solved the "homeowners insurance getting dropped 3 times" problem was to ask her what they used for her house. :)

Oranjello the cat, house maintenance, kudzu, living room window, radiator.

side yard, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

BACKSTORY: So our homeowners insurance (Farmers) got dropped due to having peeling paint on our window sills (among other things). Weak. It was a LOT of work AND money for us to repaint all our sills. Wood windows SUCK!! Modern vinyl windows are MAINTANENCE-FREE!! Wood windows... You gotta re-glaze the panes when they fall out, and then the wood itself is always going to slowly rot away. We already had our cats knock a pane out, so we already had glazing compound for pane repairs. This came in handy when we painted our various window sills, as some also needed glazing compound.

So the largest window in our house -- actually 3 windows -- was a major pain, and one of the few single-pane windows in the house. It would leak heat/cold in the summer/winter, and looked really bad compared to the new siding we had installed 6 or so years ago. So we decided to go ahead and replace just this window (actually 3 separate windows). Man was it expensive! $2,350! Thompson Creek had the best pitch and data, whereas Home Depot required $30 up front for an appointment they never showed up for and a list of 4 phone numbers to escalate (all 4 failed). So we had Thompson Creek do it of course! They did it, said they did it wrong, made us wait a month while making a new window (pro: they are all custom-made just for you; con: they are all custom-made, so a screw-up requires waiting for a new one to be made), then installed the new window, and finally everything was good and we were satisfied.

It was just kind of a pain because it cost so much money and had our living room in disarray for so many months, and the whole insurance basis for the situation was pretty bullshitty in the first place. We're not going to make a property damage claim due to moisture that occurs because our paint was peeling! Ridiculous...

Right after we started scraping off the old paint.

scraping.

bathroom window, house maintenance, peeling paint, shutters, window.

before painting.

front yard, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

May 27, 2011.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

BACKSTORY: So our homeowners insurance (Farmers) got dropped due to having peeling paint on our window sills (among other things). Weak. It was a LOT of work AND money for us to repaint all our sills. Wood windows SUCK!! Modern vinyl windows are MAINTANENCE-FREE!! Wood windows... You gotta re-glaze the panes when they fall out, and then the wood itself is always going to slowly rot away. We already had our cats knock a pane out, so we already had glazing compound for pane repairs. This came in handy when we painted our various window sills, as some also needed glazing compound.

It was quite a pain, because it cost so much money and had our living room in disarray for so many months, and the whole insurance basis for the situation was pretty bullshitty in the first place. We're not going to make a property damage claim due to moisture that occurs because our paint was peeling! Ridiculous...

Bathroom window before painting: www.flickr.com/photos/clintjcl/4531380523/

After the (first) new window was (incorrectly) installed.

As I had a pending homeowners insurance house inspection, I made them come and put a temporary cap (white) on the window. It would be a month before they came and installed the newly made, correctly sized window.

Random Trivia: That Mr. Bungle cardboard display in the middle of this picture? I got it from a record store in high school. I did not listen to Mr. Bungle at the time. I had heard of them and THOUGHT I might listen to them at some point in the future, so I pre-hoarded the display in case I did end up liking them later. And I did. I got *deeply* into Mr. Bungle during college, and was glad I had the foresight to grab that display before I even liked the band :) Thank you Waxie-Maxie of Potomac Mills, Woodbridge, circa 1990.

house maintenance, living room window.

side yard, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

BACKSTORY: So our homeowners insurance (Farmers) got dropped due to having peeling paint on our window sills (among other things). Weak. It was a LOT of work AND money for us to repaint all our sills. Wood windows SUCK!! Modern vinyl windows are MAINTANENCE-FREE!! Wood windows... You gotta re-glaze the panes when they fall out, and then the wood itself is always going to slowly rot away. We already had our cats knock a pane out, so we already had glazing compound for pane repairs. This came in handy when we painted our various window sills, as some also needed glazing compound.

So the largest window in our house -- actually 3 windows -- was a major pain, and one of the few single-pane windows in the house. It would leak heat/cold in the summer/winter, and looked really bad compared to the new siding we had installed 6 or so years ago. So we decided to go ahead and replace just this window (actually 3 separate windows). Man was it expensive! $2,350! Thompson Creek had the best pitch and data, whereas Home Depot required $30 up front for an appointment they never showed up for and a list of 4 phone numbers to escalate (all 4 failed). So we had Thompson Creek do it of course! They did it, said they did it wrong, made us wait a month while making a new window (pro: they are all custom-made just for you; con: they are all custom-made,so a screw-up requires waiting for a new one to be made), then installed the new window, and finally everything was good and we were satisfied.

It was just kind of a pain because it cost so much money and had our living room in disarray for so many months, and the whole insurance basis for the situation was pretty bullshitty in the first place. We're not going to make a property damage claim due to moisture that occurs because our paint was peeling! Ridiculous...

OMFG my neighbor actually removed the kudzu from her deck! You can actually see that it exists! There used to be a 2nd level deck, but it had to be removed to get the house un-condemned after a post-hurricane landslide. She unfortunately doesn't have the retaining walls that me or Tim do. (Repairing/adding to a retaining wall I did not even realize existed is one of our projects for next year.)

Also, you can see how the inner sill has now been painted white to match the window. No more yellow lines and ripped-off paint.

Lemonjello the cat, Oranjello the cat, bricks, deck, house maintenance, kudzu, living room window.

after painting.

side yard, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

October 14, 2011.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

BACKSTORY: So our homeowners insurance (Farmers) got dropped due to having peeling paint on our window sills (among other things). Weak. It was a LOT of work AND money for us to repaint all our sills. Wood windows SUCK!! Modern vinyl windows are MAINTANENCE-FREE!! Wood windows... You gotta re-glaze the panes when they fall out, and then the wood itself is always going to slowly rot away. We already had our cats knock a pane out, so we already had glazing compound for pane repairs. This came in handy when we painted our various window sills, as some also needed glazing compound.

So the largest window in our house -- actually 3 windows -- was a major pain, and one of the few single-pane windows in the house. It would leak heat/cold in the summer/winter, and looked really bad compared to the new siding we had installed 6 or so years ago. So we decided to go ahead and replace just this window (actually 3 separate windows). Man was it expensive! $2,350! Thompson Creek had the best pitch and data, whereas Home Depot required $30 up front for an appointment they never showed up for and a list of 4 phone numbers to escalate (all 4 failed). So we had Thompson Creek do it of course! They did it, said they did it wrong, made us wait a month while making a new window (pro: they are all custom-made just for you; con: they are all custom-made, so a screw-up requires waiting for a new one to be made), then installed the new window, and finally everything was good and we were satisfied.

It was just kind of a pain because it cost so much money and had our living room in disarray for somany months, and the whole insurance basis for the situation was pretty bullshitty in the first place. We're not going to make a property damage claim due to moisture that occurs because our paint was peeling! Ridiculous...

Oops! Guess that WAS lead paint I was scraping and letting fall all in my mouth and eyes and all over my skin for weeks on end.

They had to do a lead test. No extra cost to the customer; but they had to take extra state-mandated safety measures, PLUS due to the lead status, they were only allowed to take 50% of the job costs up front. Since we had already paid the full cost of the job (~$2500) up front, they had to refund us half, and ask us to write another check for just ~$1250. Funny how the government kept me from paying the business I wanted to pay for the service they wanted to provide me. I understand that this was for my protection, but when I actually needed protection from a creepy addition builder who took 3 years to perform a 3 month contract, screwing me out of more than $10K extra over the contract, the government could only fine him $500 and help me $0. So what I am seeing from a lot of government regulation is that it makes people feel good, but doesn't actually do anything for them.

This is also an example of a repainted window sill. Though this window is barely a window -- the outer pane is just a sheet of plastic screwed into the wooden window pane. Not airtight or anything. I had sprayed Great Stuff in there years ago. Looks like ass but probably helped the breeze a bit. This time I painted a margin around the plastic sheet itself, to obscure the ugly Great Stuff. I often call this "The Worst Window In All Of Scotland", after the "Worst Toilet In All Of Scotland" from the movie Trainspotting.

We're waiting for the sill on this window to finish rotting out. This window is one of the top 2 windows in the house up for future replacement. Always has been.

ADT sticker, Secured by ADT sticker, house maintenance, lead work area sign, living room window, no smoking or eating sign, no smoking warning.after painting.

side yard, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

BACKSTORY: So our homeowners insurance (Farmers) got dropped due to having peeling paint on our window sills (among other things). Weak. It was a LOT of work AND money for us to repaint all our sills. Wood windows SUCK!! Modern vinyl windows are MAINTANENCE-FREE!! Wood windows... You gotta re-glaze the panes when they fall out, and then the wood itself is always going to slowly rot away. We already had our cats knock a pane out, so we already had glazing compound for pane repairs. This came in handy when we painted our various window sills, as some also needed glazing compound.

So the largest window in our house -- actually 3 windows -- was a major pain, and one of the few single-pane windows in the house. It would leak heat/cold in the summer/winter, and looked really bad compared to the new siding we had installed 6 or so years ago. So we decided to go ahead and replace just this window (actually 3 separate windows). Man was it expensive! $2,350! Thompson Creek had the best pitch and data, whereas Home Depot required $30 up front for an appointment they never showed up for and a list of 4 phone numbers to escalate (all 4 failed). So we had Thompson Creek do it of course! They did it, said they did it wrong, made us wait a month while making a new window (pro: they are all custom-made just for you; con: they are all custom-made, so a screw-up requires waiting for anew one to be made), then installed the new window, and finally everything was good and we were satisfied.

It was just kind of a pain because it cost so much money and had our living room in disarray for so many months, and the whole insurance basis for the situation was pretty bullshitty in the first place. We're not going to make a property damage claim due to moisture that occurs because our paint was peeling! Ridiculous...

After the old window was removed; before the first (incorrect) new window was installed.

Random Trivia: That Mr. Bungle cardboard display in the middle of this picture? I got it from a record store in high school. I did not listen to Mr. Bungle at the time. I had heard of them and THOUGHT I might listen to them at some point in the future, so I pre-hoarded the display in case I did end up liking them later. And I did. I got *deeply* into Mr. Bungle during college, and was glad I had the foresight to grab that display before I even liked the band :) Thank you Waxie-Maxie of Potomac Mills, Woodbridge, circa 1990.

house maintenance, ladders, living room window.

side yard, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

BACKSTORY: So our homeowners insurance (Farmers) got dropped due to having peeling paint on our window sills (among other things). Weak. It was a LOT of work AND money for us to repaint all our sills. Wood windows SUCK!! Modern vinyl windows are MAINTANENCE-FREE!! Wood windows... You gotta re-glaze the panes when they fall out, and then the wood itself is always going to slowly rot away. We already had our cats knock a pane out, so we already had glazing compound for pane repairs. This came in handy when we painted our various window sills,as some also needed glazing compound.

So the largest window in our house -- actually 3 windows -- was a major pain, and one of the few single-pane windows in the house. It would leak heat/cold in the summer/winter, and looked really bad compared to the new siding we had installed 6 or so years ago. So we decided to go ahead and replace just this window (actually 3 separate windows). Man was it expensive! $2,350! Thompson Creek had the best pitch and data, whereas Home Depot required $30 up front for an appointment they never showed up for and a list of 4 phone numbers to escalate (all 4 failed). So we had Thompson Creek do it of course! They did it, said they did it wrong, made us wait a month while making a new window (pro: they are all custom-made just for you; con: they are all custom-made, so a screw-up requires waiting for a new one to be made), then installed the new window, and finally everything was good and we were satisfied.

It was just kind of a pain because it cost so much money and had our living room in disarray for so many months, and the whole insurance basis for the situation was pretty bullshitty in the first place. We're not going to make a property damage claim due to moisture that occurs because our paint was peeling! Ridiculous...

Inside view of the window. A surprising number of our frequent house guests seemed surprised to learn that this window even existed. That's weird to me, because even though I never look out windows -- and kind of hate them -- I could probably place every window in any house I've been in more than once.

We lost the shutters in the upgrade. That's okay; some were broken anyway. More random wood to put in my attic to use for blocking raccoon entry or what-not.

house maintenance, kudzu, living room window, radiator, shutters.

side yard, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

BACKSTORY: So ourhomeowners insurance (Farmers) got dropped due to having peeling paint on our window sills (among other things). Weak. It was a LOT of work AND money for us to repaint all our sills. Wood windows SUCK!! Modern vinyl windows are MAINTANENCE-FREE!! Wood windows... You gotta re-glaze the panes when they fall out, and then the wood itself is always going to slowly rot away. We already had our cats knock a pane out, so we already had glazing compound for pane repairs. This came in handy when we painted our various window sills, as some also needed glazing compound.

So the largest window in our house -- actually 3 windows -- was a major pain, and one of the few single-pane windows in the house. It would leak heat/cold in the summer/winter, and looked really bad compared to the new siding we had installed 6 or so years ago. So we decided to go ahead and replace just this window (actually 3 separate windows). Man was it expensive! $2,350! Thompson Creek had the best pitch and data,whereas Home Depot required $30 up front for an appointment they never showed up for and a list of 4 phone numbers to escalate (all 4 failed). So we had Thompson Creek do it of course! They did it, said they did it wrong, made us wait a month while making a new window (pro: they are all custom-made just for you; con: they are all custom-made, so a screw-up requires waiting for a new one to be made), then installed the new window, and finally everything was good and we were satisfied.

It was just kind of a pain because it cost so much money and had our living room in disarray for so many months, and the whole insurance basis for the situation was pretty bullshitty in the first place. We're not going to make a property damage claim due to moisture that occurs because our paint was peeling! Ridiculous...

Our rear living room window, now repainted, from the outside. The only true single-pane window left in the house; this one would be over $1000 to replace thanks to government building codes requiring much more expensive tempered glass to be used, because this window is over stairs and could hurt someone on the stairs when it breaks. So government safety regulations actually made it so expensive to replace that we changed our mind and didn't -- actually making things less safe and less energy efficient. This is how government regulation often has the opposite effect, and is not a magic answer to all societal problems.

Oops, painted this window shut too.

Sacrificial boards are used a lot in my house. I guess it's an "old wood window thing". I paid a good $5+ for another piece of crown moulding to put over the sill. The idea is that the sacrificial wood rots before the actual sill. In this window's case, the old sacrificial board was so rotten you could rip it off the nails and into pieces with your pinky finger. The sill itself was rotted out too. I spent a week or two building it up with successive layers of Elmer's wood filler. It kept raining on my wood filler and I'd have to start over! Eventually, though, it was built up enough to be flat enough to nail a NEW sacrificial board to. Hopefully this is the last paint job this sill will ever need. At some point in the future when we have more disposable income, we'll replace this window. (We need about $5,000 in new windows, so it's going to be awhile...)

You can also see the chimney to our old boiler. I actually had an ex-friend argue with me in the past about whether that that's what this was. Not sure why people think I don't know my own house. This chimney once tried to kill me by being blocked up and filling the house with diesel fumes. Fortunately the smoke was thick enough to break the laser on our cd player, turning the music off so that I was able to hear the carbon monoxide alarm. I was sleeping in the basement. Carolyn was upstairs. I probably would have left her a widow if that alarm hadn't gone off. We don't use a boiler or CD players anymore. Heat pumps are way safer in terms of CO2.

You can also see the soffit damage due to raccoons, as well as some leftover rope from the "roof tarp years". That rope came in handy when painting!

The gutters for this part of the house rotted off. Estimate for just that one ~6-foot section of gutter to be replaced? $500! Ouch! The parts are less than $100! I've seen gutter crimpers in use. It shouldn't cost THAT much. I think if I just had "a guy" come do it, instead of a licensed business -- that it would be way cheaper.

boiler chimney, house maintenance, living room window, raccoon damage, sacrificial board, soffit.

back yard, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

October 14, 2011.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

BACKSTORY: So our homeowners insurance (Farmers) got dropped due to having peeling paint on our window sills (among other things). Weak. It was a LOT of work AND money for us to repaint all our sills. Wood windows SUCK!! Modern vinyl windows are MAINTANENCE-FREE!! Wood windows... You gotta re-glaze the panes when they fall out, and then the wood itself is always going to slowly rot away. We already had our cats knock a pane out, so we already had glazing compound for pane repairs. This came in handy when we painted our various window sills, as some also needed glazing compound.

It was quite a pain because it cost so much money and had our living room in disarray for so many months, and the whole insurance basis for the situation was pretty bullshitty in the first place. We're not going to make a property damage claim due to moisture that occurs because our windows let in moisture because their paint was peeling! Ridiculous... Is paint really all that's holding us back from having property damage through our windows? I DON'T THINK SO, as no moisture was getting in prior to repainting. Just total hassling from Farmers *AND* Progressive Insurance. NationWide, however, appears to finally be on my side.

An "after" pic of the window/door/soffit/gutter/fence painting and gutter repairs, and the now-cleared stone steps with solar lights (still not recommended for guests, though).

The gutter guards are now 100% covering the front gutters, and are uniform in their coverage. Had to cut some into custom-sized pieces to get full coverage. The front-left gutter is also AMAZINGLY straight compared to the "before" picture, thanks to re-doing (and adding new) gutter nails/crews. The front-right gutter, while still obviously damaged, is in way better shape before -- it had actually pulled the end of my roof off, and I had to nail my actual roof frame back together!! Gutter-caulk was successful in making it so that you can stand at our front door in the rain without getting water on you anymore! The gutter guts! It hasn't done that in years!

When we first moved in, the front looked like this: www.flickr.com/photos/clintjcl/90504353/ and this: www.flickr.com/photos/clintjcl/90504591/ (and also www.flickr.com/photos/clintjcl/96737295/ but you can't see the green in that picture)

In case you're wondering how a gutter gets damaged: www.flickr.com/photos/clintjcl/4481727978/

Note the condition of the shingles. Progressive insurance (Homesite insurance) dropped our insurance giving us a list of reasons. We fixed the items on that list. They then dropped us a 2nd time for new reasons not included in the first list, including "curling shingles" on my roof. The shingles certainly aren't perfect, but do these look like something that's going to fly off my roof and cost an insurance company a lot of money? Of course, we survived Hurricane Irene AND the post-Irene flood storms JUST FINE ... With zero water in our house. Progressive did not even cite our roof the first time they dropped us. Quite simply, Progressive Insurance/Homesite insurance are ASSHOLES. The roof sure as hell does not need to be re-done if it is functioning just fine. Plus, I just patched it with roof cement to strengthen it up even more! Be smart. Stay away from Progressive. Their low prices aren't worth it. The State Corporation Commission has been notified, but since Virginia is a Republican state, our regulatory agencies barely have any teeth.

camping chairs, cooler, groceries, gutter guards, house maintenance, ladder, storm door, windows.

after gutter repair. after painting.

front yard, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

August 22, 2011.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

... View my camping-related blog posts at clintjcl.wordpress.com/category/hobbies-activities/camping/

BACKSTORY: After all of the first-world-bullshit we had to go through (described in the backstories of the other pictuers), it was nice to be able to take this "after" picture, and be done with it (for this year, anyway)! (Next year: Retaining wall repair, concrete wall patching.)

Way the hell up there! Note how the ladder is balanced by placing its feet inside of cinder blocks (with bricks in the holes to reduce wiggle). Typically the way I held on while painting was to hook a finger behind the trim around window sills or attic vents (or hold on to the edge of the roof), while painting with the other hand. When you're up so high you can't reach the ladder, you paint with no hands on ladder.

See the roof edge to my left? Painted. To my right? Still to paint.

You can also see how we are in the middle of painting the window sill (and it's trim--partially painted in this pic) below, as well as where I used Elmer's wood filler to build successive filling layers in the bottom right of the sill where it had almost completely rotted out.

Extra paint on the brushes at the end of the day went to fence post tops, then fence posts, then fence tops, then sides, then bottoms. We ended up doing the entire fence with "done for the day" brushes, even though we hadn't intended to paint the fence.

The small ladder came from Matthew, and saved us a LOT LOT LOT of effort in this job. Compelled us to buy a comparable wooden ladder for $5 at a yard sale later that summer.

Some irony on my t-shirt: It's the company that paid my wages that paid for buying this house [which only required having $7000 liquid cash, and only spending $3000 of it] :)

Chair on the bottom right? Set of 4 found on a streetside near our house.

Gutter on the bottom right? Later painted gray as well.

Clint.

painting soffit.

caulk, chair, cinder blocks, gutter, house maintenance, ladders, paint brushes, window, wood filler.

roof, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

June 20, 2011.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

BACKSTORY: You people with modern houses don't know how good you've got it. Did you ever stop to appreciate your plastic soffits? No, you probably don't even know what a soffit is. I used to be in that blissful ignorance. But then Farmers (and, later, Progressive) dropped our homeowners insurance for having, among other things, peeling paint on our window sills. In 2005 or so, we installed siding on our house at a cost of $9,000 to avoid having to spend $7,000 on painting our house. But siding doesn't include window sills! And now they're peeling. Tasked with weeks of evening and weekend painting, it makes sense to also paint the soffits while painting the window sills. Pretty much the last vestiges of the green color our house used to be are gone -- it's now almost all gray.

Well! Much better now! Still bad, but at least now it looks like a bad paint job instead of a door about to fall apart. And the DSL line is much better now too.

Our utility room door. Not opened since the 1990s -- had to be pried back shut. Used to have a wooden storm door, until one year it just collapsed and disintegrated from the elements (which is why there is a piece of wood attached to hinges on the right). The cinder block wall to our patio (left) is in crap condition too -- but maybe the paint will help keep out the moisture and make it last a bit longer.

You can see where the cats ripped open the blinds so they could look open the window. This is an orange cat thing; our other cats didn't do this.

You can see our DSL line hanging down. Originally it was worse, with cracked/missing wire insulation exposing inside wires all over the place. Combination of what I can only assume was cheap wire, combined with snow, ice, rain, and kudzu twisting the wires taut all the time. I used many many feet of electrical tape to patch up the outside of the water, and to preemptively cover up cracks that were going to end up getting worse later ("a stitch in time saves nine"). I wedged it behind various trim pieces whenever possible, with the extra slack hanging around our electric meter. DSL saved! The internet and phone companies will NOT fix this line for less than $180 per visit if it breaks. Last time it took them two visits because I wasn't there to point at where the wire was broken. COVAD are dicks. This shit is important. It shouldn't be considered inside wiring, but it is. Once it's past your junction box, it's all "inside" wiring, even if it's outside! Typical corporate doublespeak; outside becomes inside in the world of profiting off your consumers. I am the 99%, goddamnit.

Damn kudzu is already climbing up the door again, despite us weed-wacking the hell out of it just weeks before.

Home Depot's color-matching skills with Behr paint-with-prime vs Behr paint-without-prime leaves a lot to be desired. A LOT. Our color mis-matching here is what you get when you take the same paint back and ask them to match the existing paint. They, er, uh... don't. No refunds! $40 a gallon paint-with-primer, $25 a gallon paint-without-primer, tons of brushes, paint thinner, rags, elbow grease -- And you get this! Mis-matched color!

DSL line, Home Depot color matching, cinder blocks, concrete wall, house maintenance, kudzu, mismatched paint, utility room door.

after painting.

side yard, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

July 20, 2011.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

BACKSTORY: While dealing with Farmers insurance & Progressive/Homesite insurance's dropping our policy for us having peeling window sill paint (among other things), we had to do a bunch of house repairs. While painting our window sills, we also painted other surfaces that needed painting, such as doors, railings, soffits, stairs, gutters, pipes, and cinder block walls.

They broke my trim while installing the window. Given that I had waited an additional month past the original install date due to their mess-ups ... I was pretty insistent that they go down to Home Depot, buy replacement trim, and install it at no cost to me right that second. They sent a higher-level guy over -- he actually arrived within 2 minutes of me calling (!). I ultimately got my way. Even if, in theory, they weren't the ones to break it....The least they can do for keeping our living room in disarray for a whole month is to actually make the final product look right. After all the trouble we've had with contractors during EVERY possible home renovation, it's increasingly hard to get me to take no for an answer, and I've increasingly come to understand why "bitchy customers" are the way they are. Asking nice doesn't work.

The replacement trim wasn't an exact match, but nobody's checking that. I'm quite happy with the results, especially after Carolyn painted it.

Look outside the window. See the solar light sitting in the bricks? LIFE TETRIS.

bricks, house maintenance, kudzu, living room window, replacement trim, solar light.

side yard, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

BACKSTORY: So our homeowners insurance (Farmers) got dropped due to having peeling paint on our window sills (among other things). Weak. It was a LOT of work AND money for us to repaint all our sills. Wood windows SUCK!! Modern vinyl windows are MAINTANENCE-FREE!! Wood windows... You gotta re-glaze the panes when they fall out, and then the wood itself is always going to slowly rot away. We already had our cats knock a pane out, so we already had glazing compound for pane repairs. This came in handy when we painted our various window sills, as some also needed glazing compound.

So the largest window in our house -- actually 3 windows -- was a major pain, and one of the few single-pane windows in the house. It would leak heat/cold in the summer/winter, and looked really bad compared to the new siding we had installed 6 or so years ago. So we decided to go ahead and replace just this window (actually 3 separate windows). Man was it expensive! $2,350! Thompson Creek had the best pitch and data, whereas Home Depot required $30 up front for an appointment they never showed up for and a list of 4 phone numbers to escalate (all 4 failed). So we had Thompson Creek do it of course! They did it, said they did it wrong, made us wait a month while making a new window (pro: they are all custom-made just for you; con: they are all custom-made, so a screw-up requires waiting for a new one to be made), then installed the new window, and finally everything was good and we were satisfied.

It was just kind of a pain because it cost so much money and had our living room in disarray for so many months, and the whole insurance basis for the situation was pretty bullshitty in the first place. We're not going to make a property damage claim due to moisture that occurs because our paint was peeling! Ridiculous...

Hoping this one gets submitted to ThereIFixedIt ...

One thing not mentioned by the insurance companies was these wobbly wooden steps. The concrete had eroded away around the nails that held these to the wall. One of the vertical support boards was rotting away. Things didn't quite line up. They were getting downright dangerous, rocking with each step. I feared they would completely collapse! To me, this is the one valid thing that truly had to be fixed -- and it wasn't even on the insurance companies' lists!

So I replaced the rotting board with another board from my attic, which I had found somewhere years ago. It was rotting, too, but I flipped it so the rotting side was on top. I left the extra part up there as sacrificial material and/or something to hang something on. For less than the cost of a single board, we used a TON of wood filler (which you can see--the yellow stuff on the unpainted brown wood) on all the rotting parts of the wood. Nailage was doubled on most of the boards. I bought concrete nails at Home Depot (THEY ARE AWESOME) and re-nailed the vertical support boards to the concrete well. I used a caulking gun full of Liquid Nails behind the vertical support boards, as an additional kludgey hold should the nails get loose later. Then we painted it all. The stairs have no wobble and are like new! Only one board doesn't look so hot -- the top-most board has split horizontally into 2 separate boards, as this is where the water trickles down during storms -- probably due to me deliberately changing the water flow to go down these steps many years ago; see recent flooding video at www.flickr.com/photos/clintjcl/6166790798/ ... But since each sub-board is properly nailed, it doesn't matter that it split. It's just like using 2 smaller pieces of wood. I was so positive we'd have to replace these stairs 5-10 years ago! Now I think they very well may last 'til 2020! We'll see!

You can see the divot I axed out of the concrete stairtop-barrier during a storm 10+ yrs ago in order for water to drain more quickly.

barbecue, cinder blocks, concrete, concrete wall, house maintenance, oil drum, shed, stairs, well, wood filler.

after painting.

side yard, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

June 14, 2011.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

BACKSTORY: While dealing with Farmers insurance & Progressive/Homesite insurance's dropping our policy for us having peeling window sill paint (among other things), we had to do a bunch of house repairs. We dealt with these stairs while doing the other repairs. This is the part of the project where I hammered Carolyn's fingernail, turning it black for about 4 months. BTW -- kudzu can climb these stairs in less than a week.

Our rear living room window, now repainted, from the outside. The only true single-pane window left in the house; this one would be over $1000 to replace thanks to government building codes requiring much more expensive tempered glass to be used, because this window is over stairs and could hurt someone on the stairs when it breaks. So government safety regulations actually made it so expensive to replace that we changed our mind and didn't -- actually making things less safe and less energy efficient. This is how government regulation often has the opposite effect, and is not a magic answer to all societal problems.

Oops, painted this window shut too.

Sacrificial boards are used a lot in my house. I guess it's an "old wood window thing". I paid a good $5+ for another piece of crown moulding to put over the sill. The idea is that the sacrificial wood rots before the actual sill. In this window's case, the old sacrificial board was so rotten you could rip it off the nails and into pieces with your pinky finger. The sill itself was rotted out too. I spent a week or two building it up with successive layers of Elmer's wood filler. It kept raining on my wood filler and I'd have to start over! Eventually, though, it was built up enough to be flat enough to nail a NEW sacrificial board to. Hopefully this is the last paint job this sill will ever need. At some point in the future when we have more disposable income, we'll replace this window. (We need about $5,000 in new windows, so it's going to be awhile...)

You can also see the chimney to our old boiler. I actually had an ex-friend argue with me in the past about whether that that's what this was. Not sure why people think I don't know my own house. This chimney once tried to kill me by being blocked up and filling the house with diesel fumes. Fortunately the smoke was thick enough to break the laser on our cd player, turning the music off so that I was able to hear the carbon monoxide alarm. I was sleeping in the basement. Carolyn was upstairs. I probably would have left her a widow if that alarm hadn't gone off. We don't use a boiler or CD players anymore. Heat pumps are way safer in terms of CO2.

You can also see the soffit damage due to raccoons, as well as some leftover rope from the "roof tarp years". That rope came in handy when painting!

The gutters for this part of the house rotted off. Estimate for just that one ~6-foot section of gutter to be replaced? $500! Ouch! The parts are less than $100! I've seen gutter crimpers in use. It shouldn't cost THAT much. I think if I just had "a guy" come do it, instead of a licensed business -- that it would be way cheaper.

boiler chimney, house maintenance, living room window, raccoon damage, sacrificial board, soffit.

back yard, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

October 14, 2011.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

BACKSTORY: So our homeowners insurance (Farmers) got dropped due to having peeling paint on our window sills (among other things). Weak. It was a LOT of work AND money for us to repaint all our sills. Wood windows SUCK!! Modern vinyl windows are MAINTANENCE-FREE!! Wood windows... You gotta re-glaze the panes when they fall out, and then the wood itself is always going to slowly rot away. We already had our cats knock a pane out, so we already had glazing compound for pane repairs. This came in handy when we painted our various window sills, as some also needed glazing compound.

It was quite a pain because it cost so much money and had our living room in disarray for so many months, and the whole insurance basis for the situation was pretty bullshitty in the first place. We're not going to make a property damage claim due to moisture that occurs because our windows let in moisture because their paint was peeling! Ridiculous... Is paint really all that's holding us back from having property damage through our windows? I DON'T THINK SO, as no moisture was getting in prior to repainting. Just total hassling from Farmers *AND* Progressive Insurance. NationWide, however, appears to finally be on my side.

Our rear living room window, now repainted, from the inside. The only true single-pane window left in the house; this one would be over $1000 to replace thanks to government building codes requiring much more expensive tempered glass to be used, because this window is over stairs and could hurt someone on the stairs when it breaks. So government safety regulations actually made it so expensive to replace that we changed our mind and didn't -- actually making things less safe and less energy efficient. This is how government regulation often has the opposite effect, and are not a magic silver bullet that solves all societal problems. A non-tempered $500 would be safer than these loose panes! But no! Big Brother won't let me get that. So instead it's technically way more dangerous, as any pane could fall out once the glazing compound dries out.

Oops, painted this window shut too.

Sacrificial boards are used a lot in my house. I guess it's an "old wood window thing". I paid a good $5+ for another piece of crown moulding to put over the sill. The idea is that the sacrificial wood rots before the actual sill, much like sacrificial anodes on boats. In this window's case, the old sacrificial board was so rotten you could rip it off the nails and into pieces with your pinky finger. The sill itself was rotted out too. I spent a week or two building it up with successive layers of Elmer's wood filler. It kept raining on my wood filler and I'd have to start over! Eventually, though, it was built up enough to be flat enough to nail a NEW sacrificial board to. Hopefully this is the last paint job this sill will ever need. At some point in the future when we have more disposable income, we'll replace this window. (We need about $5,000 in new windows, so it's going to be awhile...)

And no, we didn't use edgers. We just got paint on the glass. BFD. I'm not focused on the window when I'm looking out of it. That stuff could be razor-bladed off if we cared enough. But what's the point? This window will likely be replaced someday. If we really wanted to, we could fix this with a scraper and a ladder. It would take at least 30 minutes (20 scraping, 10 ladder setup), and require 2 people (Carolyn as the ladder stabilizer, me as the elbow grease). Don't care enough to do that.

house maintenance, kudzu, living room window, sacrificial board.

upstairs, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

October 14, 2011.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

BACKSTORY: So our homeowners insurance (Farmers) got dropped due to having peeling paint on our window sills (among other things). Weak. It was a LOT of work AND money for us to repaint all our sills. Wood windows SUCK!! Modern vinyl windows are MAINTANENCE-FREE!! Wood windows... You gotta re-glaze the panes when they fall out, and then the wood itself is always going to slowly rot away. We already had our cats knock a pane out, so we already had glazing compound for pane repairs. This came in handy when we painted our various window sills, as some also needed glazing compound.

It was quite a pain because it cost so much money and had our living room in disarray for so many months, and the whole insurance basis for the situation was pretty bullshitty in the first place. We're not going to make a property damage claim due to moisture that occurs because our windows let in moisture because their paint was peeling! Ridiculous... Is paint really all that's holding us back from having property damage through our windows? I DON'T THINK SO, as no moisture was getting in prior to repainting. Just total hassling from Farmers *AND* Progressive Insurance. NationWide, however, appears to finally be on my side.

Right after we started scraping off the old paint. At some point around 2005 I had some waterproofing spray I was trying to use up, which I sprayed on the paint here to make it last longer. It turned it yellow, haha. Not the right way to do things. So good to get this repainted anyway.

This window is barely even a real window! The inner window is a low-grade single-pane aluminum window, bit the outer pane is just a sheet of plastic screwed into the wooden window pane!. Not airtight! Not a window! Not glass! No R-Value! Not anything! I had sprayed Great Stuff in there years ago. Looks like ass but probably helped with the seal a bit.

We're waiting for the sill on this window to finish rotting out. This window is one of the top 2 windows in the house up for future replacement. Always has been. It's rotting on the inside too -- often times during a shower some window will will fall into the water. There's an exposed nail inside. It's the worst condition window in the house. But of course, the longer we wait to replace it, the less money we have to spend right now :)

When I painted it, I actually painted margin around the edge of the plastic itself so as to obscure the ugly Great Stuff.

scraping.

ADT sticker, Secured by ADT sticker, bathroom window, camera, house maintenance, peeling paint, window.

before painting.

front yard, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

May 27, 2011.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

BACKSTORY: So our homeowners insurance (Farmers) got dropped due to having peeling paint on our window sills (among other things). Weak. It was a LOT of work AND money for us to repaint all our sills. Wood windows SUCK!! Modern vinyl windows are MAINTANENCE-FREE!! Wood windows... You gotta re-glaze the panes when they fall out, and then the wood itself is always going to slowly rot away. We already had our cats knock a pane out, so we already had glazing compound for pane repairs. This came in handy when we painted our various window sills, as some also needed glazing compound.

It was quite a pain, because it cost so much money and had our living room in disarray for so many months, and the whole insurance basis for the situation was pretty bullshitty in the first place. We're not going to make a property damage claim due to moisture that occurs because our paint was peeling! Ridiculous...

Bathroom window before painting: www.flickr.com/photos/clintjcl/4531380523/

Way the hell up there! Note how the ladder is balanced by placing its feet inside of cinder blocks (with bricks in the holes to reduce wiggle). Typically the way I held on while painting was to hook a finger behind the trim around window sills or attic vents (or hold on to the edge of the roof), while painting with the other hand. When you're up so high you can't reach the ladder, you paint with no hands on ladder.

See the roof edge to my left? Painted. To my right? Still to paint.

The small ladder came from Matthew, and saved us a LOT LOT LOT of effort in this job. Compelled us to buy a comparable wooden ladder for $5 at a yard sale later that summer.

Extra paint on the brushes at the end of the day went to fence post tops, then fence posts, then fence tops, then sides, then bottoms. We ended up doing the entire fence with "done for the day" brushes, even though we hadn't intended to paint the fence.

Some irony on my t-shirt: It's the company that paid my wages that paid for buying this house :)

Gutter on the bottom right? Later painted gray as well.

Clint.

painting soffit, painting window.

fence, house maintenance, ladders, paint brushes, wood filler.

roof, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

June 20, 2011.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

BACKSTORY: You people with modern houses don't know how good you've got it. Did you ever stop to appreciate your plastic soffits? No, you probably don't even know what a soffit is. I used to be in that blissful ignorance. But then Farmers (and, later, Progressive) dropped our homeowners insurance for having, among other things, peeling paint on our window sills. In 2005 or so, we installed siding on our house at a cost of $9,000 to avoid having to spend $7,000 on painting our house. But siding doesn't include window sills! And now they're peeling. Tasked with weeks of evening and weekend painting, it makes sense to also paint the soffits while painting the window sills. Pretty much the last vestiges of the green color our house used to be are gone -- it's now almost all gray.

The final product. They said the bottom left can't be made straight, since my house itself is not straight over the course of the dimension of the window. That fact is true, but it still sounds like an excuse. Anybody know the truth?

We picked the trim color, which of course does not match vinyl sills on the addition of our house, or the repainted wood sills on the rest of the house. But it's not like you can see any other windows while looking at this one anyway, and this side of our house is 10X uglier than the rest anyway, due to the utility wires (see next picture).

house maintenance, living room window.

side yard, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

August 22, 2011.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

BACKSTORY: So our homeowners insurance (Farmers) got dropped due to having peeling paint on our window sills (among other things). Weak. It was a LOT of work AND money for us to repaint all our sills. Wood windows SUCK!! Modern vinyl windows are MAINTANENCE-FREE!! Wood windows... You gotta re-glaze the panes when they fall out, and then the wood itself is always going to slowly rot away. We already had our cats knock a pane out, so we already had glazing compound for pane repairs. This came in handy when we painted our various window sills, as some also needed glazing compound.

So the largest window in our house -- actually 3 windows -- was a major pain, and one of the few single-pane windows in the house. It would leak heat/cold in the summer/winter, and looked really bad compared to the new siding we had installed 6 or so years ago. So we decided to go ahead and replace just this window (actually 3 separate windows). Man was it expensive! $2,350!Thompson Creek had the best pitch and data, whereas Home Depot required $30 up front for an appointment they never showed up for and a list of 4 phone numbers to escalate (all 4 failed). So we had Thompson Creek do it of course! They did it, said they did it wrong, made us wait a month while making a new window (pro: they are all custom-made just for you; con: they are all custom-made, so a screw-up requires waiting for a new one to be made), then installed the new window, and finally everything was good and we were satisfied.

It was just kind of a pain because it cost so much money and had our living room in disarray for so many months, and the whole insurance basis for the situation was pretty bullshitty in the first place. We're not going to make a property damage claim due to moisture that occurs because our paint was peeling! Ridiculous...

OMFG my neighbor actually removed the kudzu from her deck! You can actually see that it exists! There used to be a 2nd level deck, but it had to be removed to get the house un-condemned after a post-hurricane landslide. She unfortunately doesn't have the retaining walls that me or Tim do. (Repairing/adding to a retaining wall I did not even realize existed is one of our projects for next year.)

deck, house maintenance, kudzu, living room window.

side yard, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

October 14, 2011.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

BACKSTORY: So our homeowners insurance (Farmers) got dropped due to having peeling paint on our window sills (among other things). Weak. It was a LOT of work AND money for us to repaint all our sills. Wood windows SUCK!! Modern vinyl windows are MAINTANENCE-FREE!! Wood windows... You gotta re-glaze the panes when they fall out, and then the wood itself is always going to slowly rot away. We already had our cats knock a pane out, so we already had glazing compound for pane repairs. This came in handy when we painted our various window sills, as some also needed glazing compound.

So the largest window in our house -- actually 3 windows -- was a major pain, and one of the few single-pane windows in the house. It would leak heat/cold in the summer/winter, and looked really bad compared to the new siding we had installed 6 or so years ago. So we decided to go ahead and replace just this window (actually 3 separate windows). Man was it expensive! $2,350! Thompson Creek had the best pitch and data, whereas Home Depot required $30 up front for an appointment they never showed up for and a list of 4 phone numbers to escalate (all 4 failed). So we had Thompson Creek do it of course! They did it, said they did it wrong, made us wait a month while making a new window (pro: they are all custom-made just for you; con: they are all custom-made, so a screw-up requires waiting for a new one to be made), then installed the new window, and finally everything was good and we were satisfied.

It was just kind of a pain because it cost so much money and had our living room in disarray for so many months, and the whole insurance basis for the situation was pretty bullshitty in the first place. We're not going to make a property damage claim due to moisture that occurs because our paint was peeling! Ridiculous...

Our utility room door. Not opened since the 1990s -- had to be pried back shut. Used to have a wooden storm door, until one year it just collapsed and disintegrated from the elements (which is why there is a piece of wood attached to hinges on the right). The cinder block wall to our patio (left) is in crap condition too -- but maybe the paint will help keep out the moisture and make it last a bit longer.

You can see where the cats ripped open the blinds so they could look open the window. This is an orange cat thing; our other cats didn't do this.

You can see our DSL line hanging down. Originally it was worse, with cracked/missing wire insulation exposing inside wires all over the place. Combination of what I can only assume was cheap wire, combined with snow, ice, rain, and kudzu twisting the wires taut all the time. I used many many feet of electrical tape to patch up the outside of the water, and to preemptively cover up cracks that were going to end up getting worse later ("a stitch in time saves nine"). I wedged it behind various trim pieces whenever possible, with the extra slack hanging around our electric meter. DSL saved! The internet and phone companies will NOT fix this line for less than $180 per visit if it breaks. Last time it took them two visits because I wasn't there to point at where the wire was broken. COVAD are dicks. This shit is important. It shouldn't be considered inside wiring, but it is. Once it's past your junction box, it's all "inside" wiring, even if it's outside! Typical corporate doublespeak; outside becomes inside in the world of profiting off your consumers. I am the 99%, goddamnit.

Damn kudzu is already climbing up the door again, despite us weed-wacking the hell out of it just weeks before.

DSL line, cinder blocks, concrete wall, electrical tape, house maintenance, utility room door.

before painting.

side yard, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

June 14, 2011.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

BACKSTORY: While dealing with Farmers insurance & Progressive/Homesite insurance's dropping our policy for us having peeling window sill paint (among other things), we had to do a bunch of house repairs. While painting our window sills, we also painted other surfaces that needed painting, such as doors, railings, soffits, stairs, gutters, pipes, and cinder block walls.

The flash makes it look white. It's gray. Doing the inside of the storm door was a challenge... But the worst part was putting the painter's tape on that curved window. We also had to temporarily remove our door knocker :) And at this point, both doorbells are total farces. One can only be heard in the front room, gets stuck so that it rings non-stop (but nobody ever notices it even when in the same room except me); the other requires you hold the button for at least half a second -- a concept humans are unable to comprehend -- and requires battery changes. They both suck. And after Hechinger installed a backward front door, they are now on the wrong side of the door. At this point, that might actually be a good thing, because it discourages people from using questionable doorbells... Recently we bought a door knocker to encourage people to use tried and true methods of gaining our attention. Sadly, our addition, loud music, and closed doors (to prevent heat runoff) places us out of earshot of the front door. My mailman actually YELLED at me for not hearing my door. Could this have something to do with all the broken Netflix discs?

doorbells, front door, house maintenance, knight, light, painter's tape, storm door.

after painting.

front yard, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

June 14, 2011.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

BACKSTORY: While dealing with Farmers insurance & Progressive/Homesite insurance's dropping our policy for us having peeling window sill paint (among other things), we had to do a bunch of house repairs. While painting our window sills, we also painted other surfaces that needed painting, such as doors, railings, soffits, stairs, gutters, pipes, and cinder block walls.

Finally we gave up with the scraping. A bit later, we had painted some parts of it in case we were inspected, but had also decided that it was going to be replaced. (So we got to waste money painting a window that was being removed in a few weeks. Our thinking was that it was a sign of good faith towards our insurance overlords that we were indeed in the middle of "dealing with" this window, so don't put it on an inspection report.)

scraping.

house maintenance, living room window, peeling paint.

side yard, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

May 27, 2011.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

BACKSTORY: So our homeowners insurance (Farmers) got dropped due to having peeling paint on our window sills (among other things). Weak. It was a LOT of work AND money for us to repaint all our sills. Wood windows SUCK!! Modern vinyl windows are MAINTANENCE-FREE!! Wood windows... You gotta re-glaze the panes when they fall out, and then the wood itself is always going to slowly rot away. We already had our cats knock a pane out, so we already had glazing compound for pane repairs. This came in handy when we painted our various window sills, as some also needed glazing compound.

So the largest window in our house -- actually 3 windows -- was a major pain, and one of the few single-pane windows in the house. It would leak heat/cold in the summer/winter, and looked really bad compared to the new siding we had installed 6 or so years ago. So we decided to go ahead and replace just this window (actually 3 separate windows). Man was it expensive! $2,350! Thompson Creek had the best pitch and data, whereas Home Depot required $30 up front for an appointment they never showed upfor and a list of 4 phone numbers to escalate (all 4 failed). So we had Thompson Creek do it of course! They did it, said they did it wrong, made us wait a month while making a new window (pro: they are all custom-made just for you; con: they are all custom-made, so a screw-up requires waiting for a new one to be made), then installed the new window, and finally everything was good and we were satisfied.

It was just kind of a pain because it cost so much money and had our living room in disarray for so many months, and the whole insurance basis for the situation was pretty bullshitty in the first place. We're not going to make a property damage claim due to moisture that occurs because our paint was peeling! Ridiculous...

This was 100% necessary! And kind of fun! There was no way to set up a ladder to paint this window! Not even a ladder with 20+ configurations like mine! The steps were perpendicular and there was no way to balance a ladder. The wood to the right is too slippery to hold it up safely, and not enough to the left. To go over the fence but under the window would require having the ladder almost completely horizontally. It was NOT happening.

So we had to make a cinder block ladder.

Two cinder blocks for 3 levels: Each level perpendicular to the one underneath it [to prevent rocking]. 1.5 blocks (I was happy to have that half-height block on the bottom left!) to deal with the fact that they hung over the edge of the step. I had to add the vertical cinder block in front as a step onto to get to the top. (Yo dawg, I heard you like steps, so I put steps on your steps so you can step while stepping).

But then the top wasn't tall enough, so the diagonal block had to be added. It wasn't originally diagonal, but was turned so to allow control of how far away my face is from what I am painting -- because painting something 2 inches in front of your face is AWKWARD! There's nothing to hold onto other than the trim of the window!

In all, 9.5 cinder blocks were used. And the stack of Peapod bins to the right gave me a place to put my paint tray.

We also painted the stair railing. (I once fell so rapidly that I ripped the railing out of the wall and STILL bled a lot. So I appreciate it more now because my arm would probably have been broken otherwise.)

You can also see the partially-painted fence. Extra paint on the brushes at the end of the day went to fence post tops, then fence posts, then fence tops, then sides, then bottoms. We ended up doing the entire fence with "done for the day" brushes, even though we hadn't intended to paint the fence.

Peapod bins, cinder block ladder, cinder blocks, fence, gutter guards, house maintenance, stair rail, window.

after painting. diptych.

Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

June 14, 2011.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

BACKSTORY: So our homeowners insurance (Farmers) got dropped due to having peeling paint on our window sills (among other things). Then Progressive took us and did the exact same thing. Weak. It was a LOT of work AND money for us to repaint all our sills. Wood windows SUCK!! Modern vinyl windows are MAINTANENCE-FREE!! Wood windows... You gotta re-glaze the panes when they fall out, and then the wood itself is always going to rot. What a pain!

Finally we gave up with the scraping. A bit later, we had painted some parts of it in case we were inspected, but had also decided that it was going to be replaced. (So we got to waste money painting a window that was being removed in a few weeks. Our thinking was that it was a sign of good faith towards our insurance overlords that we were indeed in the middle of "dealing with" this window, so don't put it on an inspection report.)

X, house maintenance, living room window.

being replaced.

side yard, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

June 14, 2011.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

BACKSTORY: So our homeowners insurance (Farmers) got dropped due to having peeling paint on our window sills (among other things). Weak. It was a LOT of work AND money for us to repaint all our sills. Wood windows SUCK!! Modern vinyl windows are MAINTANENCE-FREE!! Wood windows... You gotta re-glaze the panes when they fall out, and then the wood itself is always going to slowly rot away. We already had our cats knock a pane out, so we already had glazing compound for pane repairs. This came in handy when we painted our various window sills, as some also needed glazing compound.

So the largest window in our house -- actually 3 windows -- was a major pain, and one of the few single-pane windows in the house. It would leak heat/cold in the summer/winter, and looked really bad compared to the new siding we had installed 6 or so years ago. So we decided to go ahead and replace just this window (actually 3 separate windows). Man was it expensive! $2,350! Thompson Creek had the best pitch and data, whereas Home Depot required $30 up front for an appointment they never showed up for and a list of 4 phone numbers to escalate (all 4 failed). So we had Thompson Creek do it of course! They did it, said they did it wrong, made us wait a month while making a new window (pro: they are all custom-made just for you; con: they are all custom-made, so a screw-up requires waiting for a new one to be made), then installed the new window, and finally everything was good and we were satisfied.

It was just kind of a pain because it cost so much money and had our living room in disarray for so many months, and the whole insurance basis for the situation was pretty bullshitty in the first place. We're not going to make a property damage claim due to moisture that occurs because our paint was peeling! Ridiculous...

Our house has no shed! So I had to take these "sheds" from my Grandad's garage when he died. And since these aren't "real" sheds (no floor;not quite a real structure), in theory I didn't need a permit. Yay.

The doors don't stay on, but that's good, because the roof has holes rusted in it, so I use the doors to cover up the holes. This does not give tools the amount of shelter they really need, so I keep many tools inside. For example, shed on right, bottom left, there is a green/blue jar. That is weedwacker plastic strip. A lot of mine got really brittle sitting in the cold/heat of this psuedoshed for years. So now I jar it up to at least protect it from moisture. Yay jars! No clue if that will help. I think in a proper shed some of these measures might not be as necessary.

The iron fence behind the shed is also pretty loose (how do you re-install iron fence posts into rotting concrete? I don't want to find out), so putting the sheds here will also keep the place up to code (or at least the appearance of being up to code) by making it so you can't fall over the edge (a whopping 2 feet) if the rail falls out, because the sheds are now blocking the fall. This may come in handy once the fence completely falls out. Plus you can reach the tops of the sheds very easily from the upper patio level, so I use the tops of the sheds to store long/large things and things that are waterproof. Yes, I kept my old chain-link fence posts. You never know when you need a 20 foot metal rod. I may have to joust on horses with sharpened metal spears in a post-apocalyptic Alexandria.

It's all very ghetto-rednecky, and we don't give a fuck. Giving a fuck would take even more hours of time we'd rather spend playing video games and watching TV!

And oh, BTW, the carpets in the right shed are for my yard. When walkways rot out, I don't fix it. I carpet it. When carpets get nasty, I throw them away. Free carpets are on curbs constantly. I wonder if carpets would stop kudzu? Maybe I should just throw these all over my yard. They're free. Why not? People have definitely commented that it's weird to walk on a carpet when coming up to my front door. But the alternatives are: 1) you step in a puddle instead, 2) I spend thousands so you don't step in a puddle. How about instead: 1) you step on wet carpet instead of a puddle, 2) I spend $0 instead of thousands, burning no oil, generating no carbon, and keeping some carpet scraps from going directly to a landfill.

bricks, bucket, carpets, extension cord, house maintenance, light, rake, sheds, snowblower, tools, trashcan, tub, vehicle.

side yard, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

June 14, 2011.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

BACKSTORY: Random pics taken during our 2011 house maintenance. Our most taxing house-related year since the completion of our addition.

Home Depot's color-matching skills with Behr paint-with-prime vs Behr paint-without-prime leaves a lot to be desired. A LOT. Our color mis-matching here is what you get when you take the same paint back and ask them to match the existing paint. They, er, uh... don't. No refunds! $40 a gallon paint-with-primer, $25 a gallon paint-without-primer, tons of brushes, paint thinner, rags, elbow grease -- And you get this! Mis-matched color!

The rear window of our main upstairs room (original side of room), now repainted, with rotted away lower right part of sill successfully rebuilt using successive layers of Elmer's wood filler.

(Boards in window are to keep out light. We're an anti-sun household!)

Home Depot color matching, house maintenance, mismatched paint, window.

after painting.

front yard, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

July 20, 2011.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

BACKSTORY: So our homeowners insurance (Farmers) got dropped due to having peeling paint on our window sills (among other things). Weak. It was a LOT of work AND money for us to repaint all our sills. Wood windows SUCK!! Modern vinyl windows are MAINTANENCE-FREE!! Wood windows... You gotta re-glaze the panes when they fall out, and then the wood itself is always going to slowly rot away. We already had our cats knock a pane out, so we already had glazing compound for pane repairs. This came in handy when we painted our various window sills, as some also needed glazing compound.

It was quite a pain, because it cost so much money and had our living room in disarray for so many months, and the whole insurance basis for the situation was pretty bullshitty in the first place. We're not going to make a property damage claim due to moisture that occurs because our paint was peeling! Ridiculous...

Main room window when we moved in: www.flickr.com/photos/clintjcl/90505377/

They broke my trim while installing the window. Given that I had waited an additional month past the original install date due to their mess-ups ... I was pretty insistent that they go down to Home Depot, buy replacement trim, and install it at no cost to me right that second. They sent a higher-level guy over -- he actually arrived within 2 minutes of me calling (!). I ultimately got my way. Even if, in theory, they weren't the ones to break it....The least they can do for keeping our living room in disarray for a whole month is to actually make the final product look right. After all the trouble we've had with contractors during EVERY possible home renovation, it's increasingly hard to get me to take no for an answer, and I've increasingly come to understand why "bitchy customers" are the way they are. Asking nice doesn't work.

The replacement trim wasn't an exact match, but nobody's checking that. I'm quite happy with the results, especially after Carolyn painted it.

house maintenance, living room window, replacement trim.

side yard, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

BACKSTORY: So our homeowners insurance (Farmers) got dropped due to having peeling paint on our window sills (among other things). Weak. It was a LOT of work AND money for us to repaint all our sills. Wood windows SUCK!! Modern vinyl windows are MAINTANENCE-FREE!! Wood windows... You gotta re-glaze the panes when they fall out, and then the wood itself is always going to slowly rot away. We already had our cats knock a pane out, so we already had glazing compound for pane repairs. This came in handywhen we painted our various window sills, as some also needed glazing compound.

So the largest window in our house -- actually 3 windows -- was a major pain, and one of the few single-pane windows in the house. It would leak heat/cold in the summer/winter, and looked really bad compared to the new siding we had installed 6 or so years ago. So we decided to go ahead and replace just this window (actually 3 separate windows). Man was it expensive! $2,350! Thompson Creek had the best pitch and data, whereas Home Depot required $30 up front for an appointment they never showed up for and a list of 4 phone numbers to escalate (all 4 failed). So we had Thompson Creek do it of course! They did it, said they did it wrong, made us wait a month while making a new window (pro: they are all custom-made just for you; con: they are all custom-made, so a screw-up requires waiting for a new one to be made), then installed the new window, and finally everything was good and we were satisfied.

It was just kind of a pain because it cost so much money and had our living room in disarray for so many months, and the whole insurance basis for the situation was pretty bullshitty in the first place. We're not going to make a property damage claim due to moisture that occurs because our paint was peeling! Ridiculous...

Accidentally smashed the outer upper pane of this window trying to add another unnecessary coat of paint :/

But anyway, this is the overhang window of our bedroom after repainting, as viewed from the left. The soffit over the gutter is not yet painted. And the greener part of the house to the right? That's the addition, which has plastic soffit covers like most new construction. No need to paint those, fortunately.

You can see the rope hanging from up there -- it used to hold the tarp that was over our roof for many years. (Why take it down? It probably preserved my shingles! Who cares if my roof is a blue tarp? Not me!) This rope turned out to be very handy as additional balance/security/fastening while painting these sills up on a ladder.

And yes, we painted our gutters too. Everything's "bucket gray". (For our color, I took in a bucket from under our sink to Home Depot and said "match this gray". We don't really care.)

bedroom window, gutters, house maintenance, rope, window, wooden soffit.

after painting.

back yard, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

June 20, 2011.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

BACKSTORY: So our homeowners insurance (Farmers) got dropped due to having peeling paint on our window sills (among other things). Weak. It was a LOT of work AND money for us to repaint all our sills. Wood windows SUCK!! Modern vinyl windows are MAINTANENCE-FREE!! Wood windows... You gotta re-glaze the panes when they fall out, and then the wood itself is always going to slowly rot away. We already had our cats knock a pane out, so we already had glazing compound for pane repairs. This came in handy when we painted our various window sills, as some also needed glazing compound.

It was quite a pain, because it cost so much money and had our living room in disarray for so many months, and the whole insurance basis for the situation was pretty bullshitty in the first place. We're not going to make a property damage claim due to moisture that occurs because our paint was peeling! Ridiculous...

Our leftmost 2 front windows after repainting the sills. The right one of these is the one that required the "cinder-block ladder", because it was impossible to put a ladder on the stairs.

You can also see how crooked the gutter was before I repaired it. This was also cited in one or two of the 3 homeowners insurance drops we had this year.

Oh look! A bus in the window reflection!

bathroom window, crooked cutter, gutter guards, house maintenance, window.

after painting. before gutter repair.

front yard, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

June 20, 2011.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

BACKSTORY: So our homeowners insurance (Farmers) got dropped due to having peeling paint on our window sills (among other things). Weak. It was a LOT of work AND money for us to repaint all our sills. Wood windows SUCK!! Modern vinyl windows are MAINTANENCE-FREE!! Wood windows... You gotta re-glaze the panes when they fall out, and then the wood itself is always going to slowly rot away. We already had our cats knock a pane out, so we already had glazing compound for pane repairs. This came in handy when we painted our various window sills, as some also needed glazing compound.

It was quite a pain, because it cost so much money and had our living room in disarray for so many months, and the whole insurance basis for the situation was pretty bullshitty in the first place. We're not going to make a property damage claim due to moisture that occurs because our paint was peeling! Ridiculous...

Bathroom window before painting: www.flickr.com/photos/clintjcl/4531380523/

Our old windows. Notice the discolored glass. That's not dirt. It's just really really old glass. It's actually 2 different sets of single-pane windows. They're pretty jammed and almost impossible to open as well.

bedroom window, bedroom windows, house maintenance, trees.

before window.

bedroom, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

February 7, 2012.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

BACKSTORY: We decided to replace the windows on the overhang of our bedroom. It's cold, they're old, discolored, one was broken and was single pane... And since we enjoy the Thompson Creek windows we got last year, we went with them again. Definitely not the cheapest, but one of the best.

The kitchen/back door. Rarely used. Accidentally painted the storm door shut, and have not not opened it since. Opted not to paint the door itself out of laziness, and the fact that it's in alright condition other than a permanent stain from ripping kudzu off of it back when the kudzu had gotten under the storm door and grown to the ceiling. Stupid kudzu.

We also opted not to paint the ceiling at the top of this picture -- the bottom of our bedroom overhang -- because the green paint underneath is actually in excellent condition. That is pretty much the last remaining green on the house other than the west side soffits, which we could not paint due to electrical wires all over.

A few weeks later we dug a trench and added proper drainage to the gutterin this picture.

Anybody need a birdfeeder? They bring birds to us -- but they bring far more rats, so they sit empty at our house.

Home Depot's color-matching skills with Behr paint-with-prime vs Behr paint-without-prime leaves a lot to be desired. A LOT. Our color mis-matching here is what you get when you take the same paint back and ask them to match the existing paint. They, er, uh... don't. No refunds! $40 a gallon paint-with-primer, $25 a gallon paint-without-primer, tons of brushes, paint thinner, rags, elbow grease -- And you get this! Mis-matched color!

But still. This will do. It's not peeling all over anymore, which is what's really important. The colors just aren't going to quite match.

BY THE WAY, see the pipe that comes out of the house on the left, then back into the house by the door? That was part of our house purchase settlement agreement. 12/1998, they had to fix the laundry which had been draining into the back creek for... 58 years. So they simply fed the drain back into the kitchen under the sink. Basically skirted the agreement with minimal expenditure. I'm sure this pipe will break someday... And then *I'll* let the laundry drain into the creek until the next people by the house. And the cycle continues. Muahahha.

Home Depot color matching, bird feeders, birdfeeders, cinder blocks, gutter, house maintenance, kitchen door, mismatched paint, storm door.

after painting.

back yard, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

August 22, 2011.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

BACKSTORY: While dealing with Farmers insurance & Progressive/Homesite insurance's dropping our policy for us having peeling window sill paint (among other things), we had to do a bunch of house repairs. While painting our window sills, we also painted other surfaces that needed painting, such as doors, railings, soffits, stairs, gutters, pipes, and cinder block walls.

See the brown stuff? The detritus of tree branches falling and collecting in this never-before-seen area of our roof. The smell was horrid. I named it "house shit". It was worse than horse shit, but not elephant shit. As I cleaned some out of the gutters, I had to drop it straight down (for life-threatening balancing reasons), where it landed in Carolyn's hair (repeatedly), her unable to block it with her hands 9for life-threatening balancing reasons). Probably Carolyn's least favorite part of a lot of this.

These gutters had not been cleaned in YEARS! They totally had trees with root systems growing in them. Nature is fierce around here! Constant zombie attack of life!

You can also see some of the last vestiges of the original green house -- the peeling soffit on the overhang roof. (Which got painted later. However, I did not manage to re-paint the soffit of the main roof over the overhang roof (over the attic vent). That was the one place that couldn't easily be reached. I have never stood on that overhang, nor do I intend to without a harness, nor is my studfinder capable of finding wood *through* my shingles, so I don't know where to safely screw the hook to the $160 harness that I own. Baby steps.)

Next door, you can see the huge tree that fell during the 2005-ish hurricanes.

Note the condition of the shingles. Progressive insurance (Homesite insurance) dropped our insurance giving us a list of reasons. We fixed the items on that list. They then dropped us a 2nd time for new reasons not included in the first list, including "curling shingles" on my roof. The shingles certainly aren't perfect, but do these look like something that's going to fly off my roof and cost an insurance company a lot of money? Of course, we survived Hurricane Irene AND the post-Irene flood storms JUST FINE... With zero water in our house. Progressive did not even cite our roof the first time they dropped us. Quite simply, Progressive Insurance/Homesite insurance are ASSHOLES. The roof sure as hell does not need to be re-done if it is functioning just fine. Plus, I just patched it with roof cement to strengthen it up even more! Be smart. Stay away from Progressive. Their low prices aren't worth it. The State Corporation Commission has been notified, but since Virginia is a Republican state, our regulatory agencies barely have any teeth.

Homesite insurance, Progressive insurance, attic vent, boiler chimney, gutters, house maintenance, kudzu, shingles, soffit, view.

Homesite insurance sucks. Homesite sucks. Progressive insurance sucks. Progressive sucks. before painting. before soffit painting.

roof, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

June 15, 2011.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

Very troublesome, though, is this hole in the concrete. This is where most of the water drains and does its wear-and-tear. How the hell do you patch something like this? You can stick your whole head in the hole!

One thing not mentioned by the insurance companies was these wobbly wooden steps. The concrete had eroded away around the nails that held these to the wall. One of the vertical support boards was rotting away. Things didn't quite line up. They were getting downright dangerous, rocking with each step. I feared they would completely collapse! To me, this is the one valid thing that truly had to be fixed -- and it wasn't even on the insurance companies' lists!

So I replaced the rotting board with another board from my attic, which I had found somewhere years ago. It was rotting, too, but I flipped it so the rotting side was on top. I left the extra part up there as sacrificial material and/or something to hang something on. For less than the cost of a singleboard, we used a TON of wood filler (which you can see--the yellow stuff on the unpainted brown wood) on all the rotting parts of the wood. Nailage was doubled on most of the boards. I bought concrete nails at Home Depot (THEY ARE AWESOME) and re-nailed the vertical support boards to the concrete well. I used a caulking gun full of Liquid Nails behind the vertical support boards, as an additional kludgey hold should the nails get loose later. Then we painted it all. The stairs have no wobble and are like new! Only one board doesn't look so hot -- the top-most board has split horizontally into 2 separate boards, as this is where the water trickles down during storms -- probably due to me deliberately changing the water flow to go down these steps many years ago; see recent flooding video at www.flickr.com/photos/clintjcl/6166790798/ ... But since each sub-board is properly nailed, it doesn't matter that it split. It's just like using 2 smaller pieces of wood. I was so positive we'd have to replace these stairs 5-10 years ago! Now I think they very well may last 'til 2020! We'll see!

At the bottom of this board you can kind of see the Liquid Nails -- it's painted, and looks kind of like frosting. Some was needed down here. Wanted as much stickage as possible, nail or otherwise.

Liquid Nails, cinder blocks, concrete, concrete hole, concrete wall, house maintenance, stairs.

after painting. close-up.

side yard, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

June 14, 2011.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

BACKSTORY: While dealing with Farmers insurance & Progressive/Homesite insurance'sdropping our policy for us having peeling window sill paint (among other things), we had to do a bunch of house repairs. We dealt with these stairs while doing the other repairs. This is the part of the project where I hammered Carolyn's fingernail, turning it black for about 4 months. BTW -- kudzu can climb these stairs in less than a week.

I guess this is why people paint fences? 10 years ago, this fence was intact, but not healthy looking. Always a bit green. Nowadays, all you gotta do is miss a piece of kudzu with your hatchet, and you take out a foot section of the fence. The wood is so rotted out and rained on that it's brittle and almost hollow.

It's too late to save this fence. I'm gonna let it rot away. The neighbor's half of the fence isn't in good condition either. One day we may both lose some our privacy. But it won't be ME buying a new fence, if it's anybody, it'll be my neighbor. I will not care if they see my yard. In fact, I wonder if keeping my yard intentionally messy would accelerate the progress of them buying a new fence. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First, this existing fence has to finish rotting. Meanwhile, this entire concrete patio could landslide down the back of the hill someday, as half of the concrete patio is on my neighbor's already-condemned-once yard. So who knows what will ultimately happen with this part of the yard.

I am the best neighbor ever.

ALSO CHECK OUT THE BRICKS! Kudzu and ivy, man. Ignore them for a few years and they will literally crawl up stairs, find that tiny patch of dirt bricked up in front of the fence, infiltrate it, then grow so fast and so much as to BURST A BRICK WALL and separate almost every brick from each other. Yes, this wall was intact 10 years ago. At least I now have a source of bricks, which have come in handy on multiple occasions in the last 6 months -- much more so than having a side garden ever would have.

barbecue, bricks, bucket, house maintenance, kudzu, rotting fence, sheds, solar lights, tools.

side yard, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

June 14, 2011.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

BACKSTORY: Random pics taken during our 2011 house maintenance. Our most taxing house-related year since the completion of our addition.

The bottom of the chimney has an angry face here!

See the brown stuff? The detritus of tree branches falling and collecting in this never-before-seen area of our roof. The smell was horrid. I named it "house shit". It was worse than horse shit, but not elephant shit. As I cleaned some out of the gutters, I had to drop it straight down (for life-threatening balancing reasons), where it landed in Carolyn's hair (repeatedly), her unable to block it with her hands 9for life-threatening balancing reasons). Probably Carolyn's least favorite part of a lot of this.

Another curious thing about my chimney: Why are there two? We have a theory that there's a 2nd fireplace buried in the wall downstairs, behind our leftward cabinets (where we keep our bread machines). It was perhaps covered up for heat-loss reasons, or perhaps because the kitchen was expanded and put cabinets within burn-range of the fireplace. There has definitely been discussion of turning it BACK into a fireplace downstairs, but it would be kind of an expensive hassle, and would remove a place for a couch to exist.

Note the condition of the shingles. Progressive insurance (Homesite insurance) dropped our insurance giving us a list of reasons. We fixed the items on that list. They then dropped us a 2nd time for new reasons not included in the first list, including "curling shingles" on my roof. The shingles certainly aren't perfect, but do these look like something that's going to fly off my roof and cost an insurance company a lot of money? Of course, we survived Hurricane Irene AND the post-Irene flood storms JUST FINE ... With zero water in our house. Progressive did not even cite our roof the first time they dropped us. Quite simply, Progressive Insurance/Homesite insurance are ASSHOLES. The roof sure as hell does not need to be re-done if it is functioning just fine. Plus, I just patched it with roof cement to strengthen it up even more! Be smart. Stay away from Progressive. Their low prices aren't worth it. The State Corporation Commission has been notified, but since Virginia is a Republican state, our regulatory agencies barely have any teeth.

I reinforced the flashing edges with tons of roof cement. (This is the before pic, there is no after pic.)

Homesite insurance, Progressive insurance, angry face, bricks, chimney, flashing, house maintenance, shingles.

Homesite insurance sucks. Homesite sucks. Progressive insurance sucks. Progressive sucks. after addition.

roof, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

June 15, 2011.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

Three *major* tree cuts ($500) done, after Farmers and Progressive/Homesite told us trees can't touch our roof. After we did this work, they changed their tune to "trees can't be OVER the roof". I don't think that should be legal to tell the customer they have to make certain specific changes, then turn around and say those exact specific changes were no good. FUCK PROGRESSIVE. FUCK HOMESITE. FUCK FARMERS. DO NOT USE THEM.

This is also a good "after" pic of the now-painted main room window sill. The gutter has not yet been repaired in this picture.

Note the condition of the shingles. Progressive insurance (Homesite insurance) dropped our insurance giving us a list of reasons. We fixed the items on that list. They then dropped us a 2nd time for new reasons not included in the first list, including "curling shingles" on my roof. The shingles certainly aren't perfect, but do these look like something that's going to fly off my roof and cost an insurance company a lotof money? Of course, we survived Hurricane Irene AND the post-Irene flood storms JUST FINE ... With zero water in our house. Progressive did not even cite our roof the first time they dropped us. Quite simply, Progressive Insurance/Homesite insurance are ASSHOLES. The roof sure as hell does not need to be re-done if it is functioning just fine. Plus, I just patched it with roof cement to strengthen it up even more! Be smart. Stay away from Progressive. Their low prices aren't worth it. The State Corporation Commission has been notified, but since Virginia is a Republican state, our regulatory agencies barely have any teeth.

Also since then, additional gutter guards have been deployed, and they are uniformly and 100% covering the front gutters at least. Had to cut some into custom-sized pieces to get full coverage.

In case you're wondering how a gutter gets damaged: www.flickr.com/photos/clintjcl/4481727978/ ... Yes, it's all you people who keep wishing for snows' fault. Also, here's a picture of how bent up our front-right gutter was: www.flickr.com/photos/clintjcl/3596132314/

Homesite insurance, Progressive insurance, gutter, gutter guards, house maintenance, tree, tree cuts, tree removal, window.

Homesite insurance sucks. Homesite sucks. Progressive insurance sucks. Progressive sucks. after painting.

side yard, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

June 14, 2011.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

BACKSTORY: So our homeowners insurance (Farmers) canceled our policy due to having peeling paint on our window sills, and tree branches touching our roof (among other things). So we switched to Progressive and they dropped us for the same reasons. So we renewed our Progressive policy, had $600 of tree work done, and rectified most of the list they gave us. Progressive dropped us a 2nd time for new reasons, including changing the tree requirements from "no branches touching your roof" to "no branches over your roof at all", so even after following their specific advice regarding the trees, they still canceled our policy again. It's simply not possible to satisfy Progressive when they give different reasons the second time around. Most of the reasons used by Progressive to drop us the 2nd time were never given the 1st time, even though those conditions were present then as well! PROGRESSIVE SUCKS AND IS NOT WORTH IT. INCONSISTENT! And then they try to bill you after you cancel them! Anyway, we paid The Care Of Trees $600 -- the cheapest of the 15+ companies I contacted -- to do 3 major cuts ($500) and remove the pine tree behind our addition ($100). I also bought a $100 pole saw (basically chainsaw on the end of a 10 foot pole) to handle the smaller trees (i.e. the cases where it's possible to do it yourself).

Very troublesome, though, is this hole in the concrete. This is where most of the water drains and does its wear-and-tear. How the hell do you patch something like this? You can stick your whole head in the hole!

One thing not mentioned by the insurance companies was these wobbly wooden steps. The concrete had eroded away around the nails that held these to the wall. One of the vertical support boards was rotting away. Things didn't quite line up. They were getting downright dangerous, rocking with each step. I feared they would completely collapse! To me, this is the one valid thing that truly had to be fixed -- and it wasn't even on the insurance companies' lists!

So I replaced the rotting board with another board from my attic, which I had found somewhere years ago. It was rotting, too, but I flipped it so the rotting side was on top. I left the extra part up there as sacrificial material and/or something to hang something on. For less than the cost of a singleboard, we used a TON of wood filler (which you can see--the yellow stuff on the unpainted brown wood) on all the rotting parts of the wood. Nailage was doubled on most of the boards. I bought concrete nails at Home Depot (THEY ARE AWESOME) and re-nailed the vertical support boards to the concrete well. I used a caulking gun full of Liquid Nails behind the vertical support boards, as an additional kludgey hold should the nails get loose later. Then we painted it all. The stairs have no wobble and are like new! Only one board doesn't look so hot -- the top-most board has split horizontally into 2 separate boards, as this is where the water trickles down during storms -- probably due to me deliberately changing the water flow to go down these steps many years ago; see recent flooding video at www.flickr.com/photos/clintjcl/6166790798/ ... But since each sub-board is properly nailed, it doesn't matter that it split. It's just like using 2 smaller pieces of wood. I was so positive we'd have to replace these stairs 5-10 years ago! Now I think they very well may last 'til 2020! We'll see!

cinder blocks, concrete, concrete hole, concrete wall, house maintenance, stairs.

after painting.

side yard, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

June 14, 2011.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

BACKSTORY: While dealing with Farmers insurance & Progressive/Homesite insurance's dropping our policy for us having peeling window sill paint (among other things), we had to do a bunch of house repairs. We dealt with these stairs while doing the other repairs. This is the part of the project where I hammered Carolyn'sfingernail, turning it black for about 4 months. BTW -- kudzu can climb these stairs in less than a week.

Before we started using stripping compound (ultimately spending >$50 on tons of it), we stripped using only elbow grease. This was after we spent maybe 2-3 hours of 2 people scraping.

After 4-6 hours of 2 people scraping.

scraping.

house maintenance, living room window, peeling paint.

side yard, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

May 27, 2011.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

BACKSTORY: So our homeowners insurance (Farmers) got dropped due to having peeling paint on our window sills (among other things). Weak. It was a LOT of work AND money for us to repaint all our sills. Wood windows SUCK!! Modern vinyl windows are MAINTANENCE-FREE!! Wood windows... You gotta re-glaze thepanes when they fall out, and then the wood itself is always going to slowly rot away. We already had our cats knock a pane out, so we already had glazing compound for pane repairs. This came in handy when we painted our various window sills, as some also needed glazing compound.

So the largest window in our house -- actually 3 windows -- was a major pain, and one of the few single-pane windows in the house. It would leak heat/cold in the summer/winter, and looked really bad compared to the new siding we had installed 6 or so years ago. So we decided to go ahead and replace just this window (actually 3 separate windows). Man was it expensive! $2,350! Thompson Creek had the best pitch and data, whereas Home Depot required $30 up front for an appointment they never showed up for and a list of 4 phone numbers to escalate (all 4 failed). So we had Thompson Creek do it of course! They did it, said they did it wrong, made us wait a month while making a new window (pro: they are all custom-made just for you; con: they are all custom-made, so a screw-up requires waiting for a new one to be made), then installed the new window, and finally everything was good and we were satisfied.

It was just kind of a pain because it cost so much money and had our living room in disarray for so many months, and the whole insurance basis for the situation was pretty bullshitty in the first place. We're not going to make a property damage claim due to moisture that occurs because our paint was peeling! Ridiculous...

Yes. There is a walkway here! Now that my dead-since-January already-totaled-once Pontiac Bonneville is taking up our main parking spot, I always park my 1999 Chrysler 300M (thanks, Mom & Dad!) at the top of this walkway, so it's getting used much more often. Most guests have probably never seen the walkway. We cleared it out for a party many years ago, but it overgrows completely in a year. Even new dirt is created -- these were *covered* in dirt. First I had to go at it with a weed wacker. For weeks we'd kick the dirt down as we walked over them. Finally, Carolyn & I got on our hands and knees and manually scooped all the dirt off of them. WE DID OUR JOB TOO WELL; the middle stone is cracked, and we removed so much dirt it started to rock. Now people are going to hurt themselves! I put a cinder block on it to hold it down, but now someone may trip on the cinder block! So we moved a solar light into the block, and I may buy a can of yellow spray paint to make the block yellow. "Hey! Don't trip on me! I'm here to KEEP you from tripping by keeping the stone from rocking when you step on it!" The very lowest step is at a 30-degree angle now, too; rain must have washed away the dirt underneath it.

On second thought, maybe guests shouldn't use this walkway :)

You can also see the various dead trees that were recently killed with my pole saw. It was getting to where you could barely walk up here because of all the 10-year growth.

Home Depot had solar lights on sale for $3 each, so we got about 30 of 'em. Little did we know that you have to buy replacement batteries (also about $3 per light) every year. I'd run actual wires out there if I wasn't lazy, cheap, and apathetic. But these are handy. You can pull them up and take them camping or to the back yard or what-not.

overgrowth removal, yard work.

Chrysler 300M 1999 car, house maintenance, rocks, solar lights, stairs, stone stairs, walkway.

front yard, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

July 20, 2011.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

BACKSTORY: So our homeowners insurance (Farmers) got dropped due to having peeling paint on our window sills, trees touching our roof, and yard overgrowth (and possibly other reasons I forgot). Weak. Since when did one's level of yardwork affect insurability? So we had to clear some overgrowth. Couple days of yard work.

Just a pic demonstrating our cache of cinder blocks and bricks that we left in the back yard. These are VERY HANDY for ladder stabilization when putting a 16-ft ladder on an earthy, slanted hill. You put the feet of the ladder into the holes in the cinder blocks, then shove the bricks into the remaining space. But DAMN are they HEAVY. We've now left some in our back and side yards so that we can stabilize ladders in the future without having to cut our arms up carrying heavy cinder blocks around our yard. So this is where they'll stay.

That landing stone in front of the door? That used to be under the old outside air conditioning unit, before we upgraded to a heat pump as part of building our addition. It's bigger/better than the one that was in front of the door originally, which I moved to the left. THROW NOTHING AWAY! Certainly not big-ass squares of useful material.

BTW, this is the kitchen/back door. Rarely used. Accidentally painted the storm door shut and have not not opened it since. Opted not to paint the door itself out of laziness, and the fact that it's in alright condition other than a permanent stain from ripping kudzu off of it back when the kudzu had gotten under the storm door and grown to the ceiling. Stupid stupid kudzu.

And oh -- we also had to paint that pipe. It was green like the house used to be.

Home Depot's color-matching skills with Behr paint-with-prime vs Behr paint-without-prime leaves a lot to be desired. A LOT. Our color mis-matching here is what you get when you take the same paint back and ask them to match the existing paint. They, er, uh... don't. No refunds! $40 a gallon paint-with-primer, $25 a gallon paint-without-primer, tons of brushes, paint thinner, rags, elbow grease -- And you get this! Mis-matched color!

Home Depot color matching, bricks, cinder blocks, house maintenance, kitchen door, mismatched paint, pipe, planter, shovel, stone, storm door.

after painting.

Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

August 28, 2011.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

BACKSTORY: So our homeowners insurance (Farmers) got dropped due to having peeling paint on our window sills, trees touching our roof, and yard overgrowth (and possibly other reasons I forgot). Weak. Since when did one's level of yardwork affect insurability? It was a LOT of work AND money for us to repaint all our sills. However, we ended up painting a lot of other things that needed painting too, like this door.

The Dexter's Lab bowling ball (with accompanying Cartoon Network case) we bought at a yard sale on 8/6/2011 for $2.50.

Read about that yardsale expedition at clintjcl.wordpress.com/2011/09/24/journal-yard-sales-2011...

bowling ball, house maintenance, solar light, yard decoration.

cartoon: Dexter's Lab.

front yard, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

October 14, 2011.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

Our rightmost 3 front windows after repainting the sills (and the soffit).

(Yes, I like to put weird things in my attic window.)

bathroom window, cameras, gutter guards, house maintenance, soffit, window.

after painting.

front yard, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

June 20, 2011.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

BACKSTORY: So our homeowners insurance (Farmers) got dropped due to having peeling paint on our window sills (among other things). Weak. It was a LOT of work AND money for us to repaint all our sills. Wood windows SUCK!! Modern vinyl windows are MAINTANENCE-FREE!! Wood windows... You gotta re-glaze the panes when they fall out, and then the wood itself is always going to slowly rot away. We already had our cats knock a pane out, so we already had glazing compound for pane repairs. This came in handy when we painted our various window sills, as some also needed glazing compound.

It was quite a pain, because it cost so much money and had our living room in disarray for so many months, and the whole insurance basis for the situation was pretty bullshitty in the first place. We're not going to make a property damage claim due to moisture that occurs because our paint was peeling! Ridiculous...

Bathroom window before painting: www.flickr.com/photos/clintjcl/4531380523/

The gutter, now repaired and painted. Loose gutter nails were replaced with gutter screws, and a drill was used to double the number of screw holes, adding many more gutter screws (about $1/ea) to help keep it up and straight. Gutter guards now finally cover 100% of it too, with some custom cuts having to be made. (Which was a lot eaiser with my $8 yard sale aluminum snips than with scissors.)

Our main upstairs room's front window (totally blocked from inside for privacy/anti-sun/anti-TV-glare purposes) after repainting.

If this picture looks familiar, it's because it's an alternate crop of an "after hurricane Irene" picture. That stick on top was from the hurricane. I realized it was also a good pic of our house maintenance later. This is a different crop of that same picture.

gutter, house maintenance, repaired gutter, stick, window.

after gutter repair. after painting. before painting.

roof, front yard, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

August 28, 2011.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com

BACKSTORY: So our homeowners insurance (Farmers) got dropped due to having peeling paint on our window sills (among other things). Weak. It was a LOT of work AND money for us to repaint all our sills. Wood windows SUCK!! Modern vinyl windows are MAINTANENCE-FREE!! Wood windows... You gotta re-glaze the panes when they fall out, and then the wood itself is always going to slowly rot away. We already had our cats knock a pane out, so we already had glazing compound for pane repairs. This came in handy when we painted our various window sills, as some also needed glazing compound.

It was quite a pain, because it cost so much money and had our livingroom in disarray for so many months, and the whole insurance basis for the situation was pretty bullshitty in the first place. We're not going to make a property damage claim due to moisture that occurs because our paint was peeling! Ridiculous...

Main room window when we moved in: www.flickr.com/photos/clintjcl/90505377/

Another curious thing about my chimney: Why are there two? We have a theory that there's a 2nd fireplace buried in the wall downstairs, behind our leftward cabinets (where we keep our bread machines). It was perhaps covered up for heat-loss reasons, or perhaps because the kitchen was expanded and put cabinets within burn-range of the fireplace. There has definitely been discussion of turning it BACK into a fireplace downstairs, but it would be kind of an expensive hassle, and would remove a place for a couch to exist.

See the brown stuff? The detritus of tree branches falling and collecting in this never-before-seen area of our roof. The smell was horrid. I named it "house shit". It was worse than horse shit, but not elephant shit. As I cleaned some out of the gutters, I had to drop it straight down (for life-threatening balancing reasons), where it landed in Carolyn's hair (repeatedly), her unable to block it with her hands 9for life-threatening balancing reasons). Probably Carolyn's least favorite part of a lot of this.

Note the condition of the shingles. Progressive insurance (Homesite insurance) dropped our insurance giving us a list of reasons. We fixed the items on that list. They then dropped us a 2nd time for new reasons not included in the first list, including "curling shingles" on my roof. The shingles certainly aren't perfect, but do these look like something that's going to fly off my roof and cost an insurance company a lot of money? Of course, we survived Hurricane Irene AND the post-Irene flood storms JUST FINE ... With zero water in our house. Progressive did not even cite our roof the first time they dropped us. Quite simply, Progressive Insurance/Homesite insurance are ASSHOLES. The roof sure as hell does not need to be re-done if it is functioning just fine. Plus, I just patched it with roof cement to strengthen it up even more! Be smart. Stay away from Progressive. Their low prices aren't worth it. The State Corporation Commission has been notified, but since Virginia is a Republican state, our regulatory agencies barely have any teeth.

I reinforced the flashing edges with tons of roof cement. (This is the before pic, there is no after pic.)

Homesite insurance, Progressive insurance, bricks, chimney, flashing, house maintenance, shingles, tree.

Homesite insurance sucks. Homesite sucks. Progressive insurance sucks. Progressive sucks. after addition.

roof, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.

June 15, 2011.

... Read my blog at ClintJCL.wordpress.com

... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL.wordpress.com