Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Beware The Ides Of March

And those who have their birthday today.

This year, I'm getting the most expensive birthday gift I've ever been given. Like, four-digits expensive. No, it's not a cruise, or a romantic weekend away. It's not a new wardrobe. What I'm getting is (drumroll, please)...Vinyl Siding.

See, my husband is afflicted by NeverFinishWhatYouStartitis. This can be a minor annoyance inside the house, resulting in small inconveniences like, say, going eight years without bathroom walls. EIGHT YEARS. And six years after starting the project, instead of, I don't know, PUTTING UP WALLS, he jammed small sections of 2x4's between the studs to make shelves. Annoying, yes, but at least in was inside the house. I'm not a terribly social creature, and since everyone on the planet has a bigger house than mine, when I do socialize it's not usually here. The few people I do invite in know Hubby, so they get what I'm up against and ignore the little things like the total lack of trim throughout the house, and the two types of walls in the living room, or the tuffs of insulation peeking out between where the walls end and the front door begins.

Now, outside the house? That's a bigger deal. Let me describe the exterior of my home for you. The front, back and left sides have faded marigold-yellow aluminum siding, and the right side has 1/3 aluminum siding and 2/3 red-brick colored shiplac paneling. In between the shiplac and the siding is a red board, hastily nailed up before the last home inspection, which is supposed to resemble trim (it fails miserably at its task). On the left side, Hubby replaced the old drafty picture window with three double hung windows a year and a half ago. The trim around the new windows? Tyvek paper, which continually flaps in the breeze. For a year and a half. The two attic windows have jagged aluminum siding around them, a testament to how difficult it is to neatly cut aluminum and jam it under window trim while hanging out a second-story window. The house sits above the road, and there is a paved driveway out front, barely visible underneath the accumulated dirt from the unpaved driveway we had cut into the hillside, which creates a mudslide every time we get more than 1/2 inch of rain.

Why my house looks like this is a long, long story, or more accurately, a collection of short stories strung together to spell out UGLIEST HOUSE IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD. Seriously, this is a pretty nice neighborhood, not McMansion nice, but solid middle-class nice, and my house is a blight. Big-time.

So, is it any wonder I'm excited about the new siding? Seriously, I'm thrilled...I couldn't ask for a better birthday gift. The only thing with vinyl is that the majority of the color choices are light, neutral shades of beige or gray, with a grayish-green and a grayish-blue thrown in for variety. Every other house on my street is beige or light yellow, with the exception of my next-door neighbor, who has an olive-green house. My roof is brown, so I can't go with the grays, so we settled on the only vibrant color the siding company offers, which is Barn Red (actually they call it Lighthouse Red, but it looks like Barn Red to me), with black shutters. And since I'm afflicted with InstantGratificationitis, now that we've decided to have the house re-sided I want it done two weeks ago. Really, I want to head out to buy groceries, and come home to my nice neat red house. *Sigh* Unfortunately, the siding company doesn't work quite that fast.

Yes, you read that right, I said "siding company." See, my husband does wonderful work...He really does. If you look up "perfectionist" in the dictionary, you'll probably see his picture. But, I'm afraid if he starts this project he'll get 3/4 of the aluminum siding ripped off, and the NeverFinshWhatYouStartitis will flare up again, and the neighbors will start picketing, and things will get ugly. Okay, okay, uglier. Anyway, we've decided to use a real, legit, Siding Company.

Incidentally, we're also going to have the driveway paved and a rock retaining wall built along alongside it where bare jagged earth sticks out now. Hubby will be doing that project with a friend of his, who does masonry work. *Sigh* Hopefully, if his friend is afflicted with any illnesses, it'll be InstantGratificationitis instead of NeverFinishWhatYouStartitis. At any rate, at least I'll have my nice neat red house to gaze at as I tromp through the ankle deep mud in the driveway to get to the front porch. Who could ask for any more that that?

Posted by The Gradual Gardener :: 1:34 PM :: 10 Comments:

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