I always get in trouble when I take a day off. It doesn't really matter when I do it or why, it somehow gets me into some kind of a major undertaking.

So, here I am again finding myself looking over a jobsite that I used to call home and wondering why I do this each and every year.

Last year was the diningroom, kitchen and hallway remodel, the year before was the building, the year before was the back porch and I don't remember what I did the year before that, but I guarantee it was something. I think I used to fish and hike and go for drives on the Parkway, now I tear up things so I can rebuild them.

As I was alluding to earlier, I took off last Friday and the weather was a little too good to miss a chance to tear the house up. It went like this: I had a bay window-type thing in the kitchen that was at least partially rotted and all the way in need of replacement. The windows on it were not well insulated and one of them wasn't working properly. How bad was it? I had to put towels around the window to block part of the cold air last winter and bees had started finding their way in the house beneath the broken frame.

It being a bay-style window makes it sound lovely, but it really was anything but. It was basically an angled contraption added to the outside of the house and capped with vinyl and silicone to seal it. Obviously, flat surfaces and water don't mix, so the water was puddling and finding its way inside the framing.

I had dreaded this job long enough to make it feasible. I usually consider a job for several months or years before ever starting it and this case was no exception.

I was sitting in the kitchen that morning, innocently sipping a cup of coffee when I decided to try to remove the old window and see what was underneath. After taking out a few screws, I found myself calling in a worker, tearing off most of the wall and heading back to the building supply. Doing so led to the entire wall needing to be recovered in plywood and vinyl siding.

And that's how I ended up replacing the vinyl siding on the house. You see, it starts off simple enough and then it all blows up into some great mushroom cloud that can be seen for miles.

It did need to be done. The vinyl was broken in places and a previous owner had taken the liberty of brush painting it. But that doesn't make the work any easier or looking at a house that's only partly vinyl sided any better, either. However, having only part of it done and a big ugly area on the end of the house helps keep me focused on the task at hand.

On the first day, I got the fellow to come help me and we worked for the next 12 hours or so. By the end of the day, we had all the siding torn off the end of the house and loaded on his truck and the old windows and scrap wood loaded onto mine.

After a trip to the dump, we went to get the new siding. The fellow at the dump mentioned he reads the column; he's bald, too.

Anyway, we then picked up the siding and started installing it just after lunchtime. We had half of one end of the house done and a bit more when we quit.

The next morning, I was on my own, until I drafted the family.

I worked until about 8:30 that night, finishing the siding on the end of the house and gettting almost all of the front of the house done.

I still need to do the end of the house and the back, which will be the hardest part since it's covered with old hardboard siding and will need to be completely redone, including plywood.

Maybe I'll be able to take a little time off this week. Then again, that might not be such a good idea. I might end up tearing something else up.
 

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