I have a confession to make: I've been having a daydreaming DIY house affair. It's true, I have to come clean...I'm obsessed with another house. But my clear and obvious destiny to own and care for this other house has been prevented by my wife, and I pine for the loss of this dwelling I never had. My lovely wife cares not for the important things, like how much this house needs us, but rather about frivolous things like a pedestrian 20th century need for indoor plumbing, functional living space, and the apparently "extremely important" ability to drive up to this house on an actual driveway that isn't simply two wagon wheel tracks cut in the mud through the woods.
This obsession of mine began several months ago. Some may call it an accident, but I call it fate, the aligning of the real estate stars, or perhaps a kind glance from the DIY gods. While investigating what one can expect to pay for a large amount of land with an old house on it somewhere in the Virginia countryside, I was constantly faced with beautiful home after beautiful home, but each with a shockingly high price tag that was far less attractive.
Having a "can you believe how much this costs?!" moment while investigating pipe dream after even more unrealistic pipe dream, I stumbled across a beautiful diamond in the (very) rough. Among the well manicured lawns and historic structures of Virginia horse country, this jewel called out to me from the tiny preview photo.
I rubbed my eyes, surely they were deceiving me. Could it be true? A Victorian gem in need of a *tiny* bit of TLC on 50+acres of land!
What's that you say? You think the house looks like it's falling down? Probably haunted? Definitely has snakes? And you can't imagine someone in their right mind purchasing it? Oh ye of little faith!
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Though our siding to do list was growing rather than shrinking, we had accomplished most everything we could without addressing the ugly nine headed gorilla in the room of "how are we going to work up high on the side of the house?"
It was a simple dilemma, but one whose solution seemed to evade us. We were faced with a very narrow alley to the side of our home and about 22 vertical feet we had to somehow scale while first removing, then preparing for, then installing a whole lot of siding.
The answer to our quandary seemed simple enough: "put up scaffolding." But having never worked on scaffolding, let alone with actually building my own scaffolding, I feared going this route was yet another recipe in our smorgasbord for disaster, and I was the main ingredient in this course of the meal.
I tried to noodle my way trough my dilemma, albeit unsuccessfully, but coming up with a series of brilliant ideas that made a simpleton resemble Mike Holmes. My internal dialog was like an arguing six year old trying desparately to come up with a solution over all logic.
I thought:
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With two of our big three questions related to our major siding project answered, we were feeling good about the project that had loomed to large over our lives.
Determining both the siding design and material, as well as the tools that would allow us to actually apply it to the house, felt like massive steps in the right direction. In fact, knocking out the first two items from the list somehow gave us the foolish yet necessary gusto to throw caution to the wind and march ahead, not knowing how or if we'd actually solve item #3...How the F@$& are we going to get all of the way up on the side of the house? A really long ladder? Yeah, that's a recipe for disaster.
Rather than addressing this critical issue, we just sort of decided we'd go ahead and start the bulk of the project, and we'd worry about the remaining question at a later time.
We've already given you a bit of a glimpse into the start of the project. But just to recap, because the true glory of our siding can only be experienced in photos, I'll give ya'll a brief catchup summary.
We thought the siding was rotten.
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Hello, my name is Wendy, and I was sucked into our local H&M grand opening event. It's not a proud nor a particularly glorious moment of mine, but I must accept my actions and recognize my foibles for they define me for who I am.
Roughly a year and a half ago we bid a fond farewell to our local Restoration Hardware. Though their change in style and adoption of oversized furniture that failed to fit in our hobbit sized home limited our purchases to the "few and very far between" variety, their store was always fun to stop in with Lulu for a break from the heat in summer, a respite from the cold in winter, or for a cozy place to rest our weary legs while "trying out" their oversized comfortable sofas.
After years of dwindling foot traffic, escalating rent, and the evolution of their catalogs that resemble something closer to a volume of World Book Encyclopedias than a home decor advertisement, they threw a blow out "up to 70% off" sale and finally shuttered their doors and directed their would be shoppers to the nearby Tyson's Corner and Georgetown locations. Oh the horror! We may never shop there again.
Soon after the RH closure we began speculating on the establishment that might replace RH. In such a large location, the possibilities were seemingly limitless.
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One of the true lessons of old home ownership was the realization that few people really know what lies beneath when opening up floors, walls, or ceilings. You're equally as likely to find solid "bones" of a house as you are to fine the patchwork of projects gone bad. Those that are truly lucky find treasures or cash. But everyone finds a little piece of history that's been hidden away for decades or centuries. It's typically not glamorous, but in a way, it can be poetic or inspiring.
While we're in the midst of reminiscing about our siding project undertaking from a few years ago, I wanted to share something with you that I stumbled on this week in Old Town that I think is pretty cool.
Over the weekend Wendy and I decided to order a pizza for dinner and headed over to the newly opened store in north west Old Town to pick it up. While over in that neck of the Old Town woods I stumbled on an in progress renovation project that I felt I just had to share with all of you. But before I get into it, let me give you a little background on the area.
The part of Old Town I'm referring to is actually not the "Old & Historic Alexandria," but rather the "Parker-Gray" Historic District. Parker-Gray is a separate and recognized historic district that actually sits nestled up right along side the Historic Old Town section of town. While Parker-Gray doesn't have buildings that are quite as old as those in the oldest parts of Old Town, there are still a good number of 19th century buildings, and quite a few early 20th century places as well. In the years since we moved to Old Town we've seen the streets of Parker-Gray slowly transform, one renovation after another, and spring to life.
I still remember one home on North Alfred Street that was covered in asphalt fake brick shingles and had two cast iron cats affixed to the front of the house, looking like they were scaling the wall. Those cats are long gone now, the house fully renovated with wood siding, and I really regret not getting a photo of those cats before they were removed and the building before it was renovated. I was able to find this old photo of the group of houses where the cat house was. If you have any photos of these homes, please let me know, as I'd love to see them.
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