9/7/25

The concrete guy got back with us early in the week with a quote (very high but we went with it). He planned to get started on Tuesday, then Wednesday, but it ended up being Thursday morning before they finally made it. Rick arrived at the same time Thursday morning. They broke up and hauled off the old concrete, put up forms/rebar, drilled and tied into existing concrete, brought in sand to even everything up, and got everything ready to pour for late Friday morning. Rick also painted the window trims.

Rick sent pics of the forms on Thursday night, and I noticed that they hadn't built a landing at the back door. I had asked the concrete guy twice when we met him on Sunday to make sure that he understood that we wanted a landing and a ramped/sloped sidewalk. Rick contacted him, and they did fix it before the pour on Friday morning.

They did an excellent job and even did a little more in a few areas than we were expecting. The many front sidewalk issues were resolved, they filled in some holes on the front of the house, and did extra around the cellar area. We were very pleased with their work and relieved to finally have this headache completed.

We walked across the street to the first home football game on Friday night. It was raining with a strong north wind at the first of the game, and about 1:16 into the first quarter there was about an hour lightning delay. The game finally resumed was called at half (64-12). 

On Saturday, we brought some more stuff over from mother's old house and painted the front doors and door trim. We decided to go with "Admiral Blue". We wanted a good pop of color and got it! We re-installed the handrails in front and back and all of the other stuff around the doors on Sunday morning, finally installed the TV stand and TV in mother's bedroom, and worked on some other small projects before coming home. 

We'll be away for a couple of weeks for a much needed cruise. It looks like the roof will possibly be removed and replaced the week we get back. The roofer is going to replace the roof on mother's old house and the outbuildings before he does the new house. Once the roof is replaced and the new trim added, we'll paint the trim (white). The cellar door will have to be replaced ASAP. We have paint touchups and some other little stuff left, and we'll also be taking the old roofing metal, turning it into siding for the carport and storage area, and painting it sometime relatively soon. 

The color palette (also white trim, not shown)

Concrete progress on Thursday

Ready to go (except no landing!)

Working on cellar area

North window trim painted and looking good

West windows trim paint going on

Sidewalk poured and drying on Friday afternoon

Much improved front entry with water now directed away from house, nicely tied in to the old sidewalk in front (right and left) which previously dropped down and was a mess, no more steps/gently sloped sidewalk, 2 prior holes in existing sidewalk on front (left) fixed but not really visible 

New back sidewalk

Looks great!

Rainy football game with long lightning delay (won 64-12)

Ready to paint front door trim

First coat (still wet)

Back door painted and drying

Front door painted and drying, new house numbers

Hand rails going back up

Drilling into new (still green) concrete to set handrails

Front of house with handrail back in place

Back of house

Mother and Gracie

8/31/25

Rick arrived on Friday morning, and I worked half a day and arrived Friday afternoon. He repaired the old bathroom window hole in the siding in the front, trimmed out the front door, and worked on removing the siding on the back and prepping for painting. 

On Saturday, we had to remove all of the lights/Ring doorbell/hand rails, etc., to prepare for painting, trim out the rest of the back door, put up the remaining sheets of siding around the cellar and back door areas, finish caulking around the entire house (remaining windows, doors, holes in siding, etc.) and get windows and other areas taped. I also clipped back the badly overgrown honeysuckle bush and cleaned up the area north of the cellar to allow access to the siding and to make the area usable again. Becky was around for a while and helped dig up irises that had strayed outside the appropriate areas in the yard and we, of course, hoed more weeds. Rick and I finally got everything put together, taped, and ready to paint very late in the afternoon and were able to get 2 coats on the back and one coat on the northwest side before it got dark. There were lots of storms in the area, and Sunday looked very questionable for finishing the painting.

Sunday morning was stormy with storms lined up into the panhandle. The heavier rain was long gone, but it was threatening until just before noon. Rick re-installed the stuff in the backyard (Ring doorbell base, motion detector light) and installed the outdoor electrical outlet for the first time. We got everything set up and taped and were able to resume painting around noon. We got 2 coats on the entire house and got things cleaned up, loaded some leftover siding/trim onto the trailer, and brought some things back to Lubbock. Rick also re-installed the front handrails, front Ring doorbell, etc. 

The concrete guy who was supposed to go by and take a look this past week never contacted us. While we were getting things cleaned up, the original concrete guy (who has stood us up twice) texted, and said he was in Benjamin. He stopped by and measured and is supposed to get us a quote tonight or tomorrow. His crew will be doing some work at the school in the next week or two and may be able to get this one done at the some time. It just might work out!

We're happy with the house colors. We wanted to go with something other than brown. The windows and door trims will be white (we didn't have the white paint yet and just used the light gray for simplicity). We'll go with a different color on the doors for a splash of color, but we haven't totally figured that out yet. The current faded brown roof seems to distort the gray colors. The roof will hopefully be replaced in a few weeks, so we'll probably wait until that's done to decide on the final front and back door colors.

Next week, we'll probably paint the trim on the doors and windows, do some odds and ends in the house for mother, and maybe move some outdoor furniture from the old house. 

Hole around original bathroom window repaired with matching old siding

Siding in place, trimming out front door

Front door trimmed

Working on removing and replacing old hail-damaged siding around cellar

Old siding removed, trimming and cleaning up honeysuckle bush and area around cellar

Honeysuckle area cleaned up

New siding going up

New siding

New siding completed, honeysuckle area clean

Trimming out laundry room window

Laundry room window finished

Removing old gutter in front

Ready to start painting back of house

First coat going on

The brown roof distorts the colors

Starting on the north side

Less color distortion with brown roof not in photo

Working on re-installing lights in back while waiting for storms to end

Front ready for paint

Back finished

Putting primer on some areas and prepping for paint

Primed, taped, and almost ready (except windows)

Finally painting again on Sunday around noon

Front

South side

Finished back with some different lighting 

Finished front

Finished front and south side

Finished back and north side