Finally--some progress on the house!

Allison got a ride on the lift with Daddy. I must say that we recently tore out the hideous bushes that were on the side of the house ( you can still see the narly stubs if you look close) and I am thinking that our next big project should be a wrap-around porch!
Russ is tackling the limbs

The moment I was waiting for--some color in the front!

It seems like this house painting project has been taking forever. But, when you've got a big house, kids in activities, job schedules, weather and everything else to factor in, it's going to take some time. Russ has been working hard on powerwashing the house and getting it prepared to paint. He finally got started painting a few days ago. He started in the back so that he could get used to the power spray painter. That thing is awesome. He quickly realized that painting the house would be the easy part. All the prep work was the hard stuff. Because of the height of our house and the difficulty in holding a paint sprayer while on a ladder, we opted to rent a lift. Also, a very smart move. It is also making the job a lot more bearable. Russ took full advantage of the lift and managed to cut down a few more tree limbs. We have huge old maple trees in our yard. They offer great shade, but a little too much shade and lots of leaves. I love fall, but when it comes to raking leaves, not so much. Our yard is completely fenced in, so we don't have the benefit of Mother Nature blowing our leaves into the neighbor's yard. Fortunately, our town will pick up our leaves if we rake them to the curb. That is always a huge project in and of itself.

Russ worked really hard on Sunday and accomplished a lot. We were both pretty psyched because we just KNEW he would be able to get it completely finished today (Monday). Unfortunately, he picked up the nasty stomach virus that is going around and was up sick in the wee hours of Monday morning and all day Monday. I was off work and Cole was out of school for Fall break, so we just sort of hung out all day. I will just have to show you more pics of a work in progress.

We are going with a tan color that will hopefully camouflage the dirt so the house won't look so dirty in the future. We are going to keep the white trim around the windows, soffit and gutter and eventually add burgundy shutters.

I was cracking up at the number of gawkers we had as people drove by. While we are doing our house, our neighbor is busy re-siding his house. People are just fascinated by the progress I guess. It's a wonder no one rear-ended anyone as they slowed to watch Russ on top of the house painting.