Renovations

Back in the depths of the January cold, somewhat fed up with the lack of insulation in our old clapboard shack, we decided it was time to renovate.  Our little 1200+ square foot bungalow was built back in 1968.  The standard of the day was to insulate the exterior 2x4 walls with 2-1/2 inches of fiberglass insulation, and the attic with about 6 inches of wood shavings.  Our old aluminum slider windows had seen better days... and the entrance doors leaked air like sieves.  In fact, when I walked up the side walk, returning home after my day at work, I could smell from the front street what Margarit was cooking for supper.  We also got some really cool frost patterns on the windows, that generally lasted from about November until March.  They were great for making photographs, but not so great for the gas bill.  The big 5 x 10 foot picture window in our living room was really inefficient and when it got really cold outside the glass touched together in the center forming a big circular patch of ice.

We got a quote on a complete upgrade package from a local renovation contractor.  It was pretty much in the range I expected so we decided to bite the bullet and go for it.  The package included new windows with triple glazed Low-E glass, insulated entrance doors with storm doors, new soffit, fascia and eavestroughs, 1-1/2 inches of rigid insulation added on the exterior walls, new siding all around the house, upgraded attic insulation, and new shingles.  The new windows were ordered back in January, and were ready for the installation to begin in late February.  It will be nice that we can get all this construction and disruption to our lives over with at this time of year and be able to look forward to enjoying the summer months without a major project on our hands.  This snapshot shows the old vinyl siding coming off the front of the house and the even older funky 1960's vertical siding underneath that...

Here are a couple more images of the work progressing.  We are changing the exterior color scheme to dark brown on the soffits and fascia, and a light tan colored siding.  The new shingles will probably be a brown or grey color... we haven't decided yet.  The roofing work can't take place right away, as we still have to wait until the snow disappears.