Yesterday (friday) arrived a 20ft dumpster - which marks the begining of our siding project.  We've been getting quotes & decided to go with a friend, who will let us save a ton of money by doing 1/2 of the work ourself.  So two weeks ago, I ordered all the siding from Menards, pulled a city permit, and sarah ordered the dumpster. 

 Day 1 - We tore down the North facing cedar shakes to find a large hole under the siding.  This wasn't a surprise to me, because it's the area of the house which is prone to ice damns in the winter months.  So the house had previously taken some water damage and made the wood soft.  Ants moved in and ate away at the soft wood.  Some time very soon, I'll be coming in to make all the wood new again & create a weather seal so this doesn't happen again.

 Day 10 - Last week it was a frantic struggle to get the TyVek house wrap on the house before the rains came & it's been rainy ever since.  A week ago, Sarah and I tore out some old wall boards that had water damage & replaced them with new 1x12 boards.  We also recontructed the soffit on the North side with treated lumber.  While we had all this rotten wood torn out - we also took the time to seal the gaps with insulating foam.  The forcast was good for a couple days, but Thursday evening and Friday morning were a nervous time trying to quickly put up the house wrap.  Things worked out and the house stayed dry.  Then this Saturday we took out and installed our new door.  This door is solid fiberglass without a window - to keep the south-side of the house cool & block more light from entering the entertainment center in the basement.  Finally, we tore out all of the red walls in the attic bedroom.  No longer the candy-cane crib, as Nils liked to call it.  I was surprised to find sheetrock under the wood panel boards.  That will make that part of the project easier and cheaper.  In another week or so, we'll call Mark in to put up the viynl siding.  Today the dumpster got taken away - no more demolition for us.