Team AngelaIt's Like Extreme Home Makeover: Angela Edition!

First, a word about our house in Newton… it’ll be on the market very shortly! We’re in the middle of fixing every little nagging thing, like windows that stick, bathroom ceilings, leaky gutters, and torn screens. It’s a lot of minor stuff that creeps up on you over time, and you don’t want to show it off at an open house!

Our realtors, Buzz and Margie Birnbaum of Hammond RE have been a tremendous help. They referred us to Alli Krongel of Whitney Interiors (her contact info is in the “Building Partners” section of this site). She’s a house stager and interior designer, and she took the furniture, artwork, etc. that we already had, rearranged it, and the whole place looked 10 times better! There’s a picture here of one corner of our living room that she turned into a little oasis in less than 10 minutes; the whole job took her 3 hours. I’d recommend her in a flash- she has great taste, plus a fine sense of color and space, and she loves what she does…and she does it at very reasonable rates. A find.

Now on to Westwood… 109 Colburn is starting to look a little more like a house. This past week they got the plywood sheathing on the roof so you can clearly see its lines (real purty…), and they fitted the facia and soffit boards which go over the ends of the rafters. They’re the white boards at the bottom edge of the roof in the pictures, creating a finished look where the roof rests on the outside walls of the house (as well as a handy place to mount gutters).

Tech note: The soffit and facia boards are actually plastic- they’re from a company called Azek which makes house trim pieces (and a lot of other stuff) meant to stand up to the elements without requiring maintenance. Paint sticks to it like glue, so it should be a long time before we have to repaint the trim. Remember, whenever you paint something, you’re also making an appointment to paint it again at some time in the future. The further out that appointment is, the happier I am. That also accounts for our decision to leave the interior doors and trim in a natural wood finish (which a carpenter I knew long ago said is fancier than any paint job you could ever apply- a sentiment I’ve never forgotten).

We’re having an insulation adventure. It turns out there are a bunch of ways to insulate your home, all with pros and cons, resulting in a matrix of possibilities that I should probably be kept away from so I don’t stall the project. It’s sorted out I think, but you never know until it’s applied!

They’ve also fitted the first floor ceilings with strapping, narrow boards that will make it possible to attach sheetrock to the ceilings. There’s a very cool picture showing the strapping in place, and it gives you some sense of how much work is hiding beneath the interior skin of your home.

Finally, we saw a nice big pallet of red cedar shingles sitting in the front yard, and the windows are supposed to show up this week, which means in just a few days it will look much more like a house. Can’t wait!