While I was at it, I relocated our phone’s base station here, too, since it suffered from the same problems as the wi-fi.  Both are working much better than they were before.  And if you’re wondering why I did such an overkill, industrial job with the electric conduit, it’s because I scavenged about 200′ of conduit and dozens of handy boxes when my company’s office was being remodeled a few years ago.  The contractor was going to send it all of for scrap, so I grabbed as much of it as I could.  It’s been taking up space in the garage for over 3 years, so I get all excited any chance I get to pull out the conduit bender and actually get to use some of it!

Conduit and cat5, oh my!

If you’re curious about the WSJ piece, it’s posted here: http://online.wsj.com/ad/article/sir-insights?WC=HPInsThumb

• strip and re-finish front door
• finish sidelights and trim around front door
• touch up the trim around 6 windows with bronze paint
• paint and install 2 more storm windows
• paint exposed trim on back dormer
• add trim around back dormer windows
• rebuild rotted posts and railings in front of porch

Considering where we started, that is a teeny little list.  It may or may not all get done this fall, but we are at least weather-tight and ready for the rain now.

Sidelights look much more distinguised with their new bronze paint

Bronze-painted storm windows re-installed

All rafters painted!

The lazy (but fast) way out of the mess of a back dormer...covering it with metal!

Looks done from this angle (except for the plywood, of course)

Considering it was a weekend of mediocre productivity (my helper couldn’t make it on Saturday, and I only worked two shorter days), we still accomplished quite a bit.  The key is that we have so many different little projects and areas going at once that it feels like we’re constantly knocking things out. Here is a shot of the side yard, with the scaffolding now in it’s 8th position.  If I were starting all over, I think I would have dumped another $60 into the thing and extended it enough to cover a full side of the house.  I’m always having to manage around the scaffold’s position, so at times it can get inefficient.  Such as when it has to get left in place while we’re waiting for paint to dry for touch-ups.  But regardless, we’re actually done now with all the walls (yes!), so it’s only purpose in life is to serve as a platform for the straggler rafter tails and accompanying gutter.

And what do you do when a windowsill is too messed up to save?  Well, if it’s on a dormer that’s tucked way up in the back of your house where no one can see it, you just cover it with sheet metal!  I couldn’t figure out any way to salvage the chewed up thing, so I found flashing in the perfect size and just encased it.  I will paint it to match the rest of the trim, just in case anyone goes to the back corner of the yard and looks up, but I can pretty much guarantee that nobody will see my “cheat.”  This worked so well that I am also going to cover the gable ends with metal.  These areas just aren’t worth spending the hours and hours they’d require to do it right, and I’m in a rush to at least get this area good enough to make it through winter intact.

Galvanized sill

Unfortunately, I was unable to find any moldings that matched the profile of our drip cap.  McCoy had one that looked right, but it was 1/2″ narrower than ourso match our house’s (F890 on pg 27 of their molding catalog.)  So, I ended up buying a Cedar 4×4 and table-sawing my way to new drip caps.  I can’t remember which took longer, making them or installing them, but they came out great.  Sadly, my “brilliant” idea of adding  a drip groove feature to the caps was one of short-lived glory.  Once I installed the molding below, I realized that my groove was going to be covered by caulk

Horizontal cap + rain = not so good

Old v. new

8° of freedom

Not yet rotten!