Don and Lilly, thank you for your condolences. She was just shy of 80, and was one of those most-beloved Southern ladies--she had a nature like that of the character of Melanie Hamilton of
Gone with the Wind. Soft spoken, loved everyone, knew just what to say or do in any situation, and could make a killer pound cake that was the first thing to disappear at every church dinner.
Don, I am going to keep that in mind with the wisteria. At this point, I plan to only have just a few sprigs in the lattice and fence, and the rest to grow on a corner support made of sturdy materials next to the side of the porch. The wisteria was planted at the same time the house was built (so the family says), and at one time it engulfed the entire south side of the original house, along with English ivy. It's quite the destructive plant when left to itself, but so beautiful.
My late friend's husband and son made a surprise stop to the McCuiston House this past Saturday. She had been to my home before, but they had not. Their son is a highly-skilled contractor and has built a very high reputation in a large historic port city here in the South as being one of the very best for restorations. He has had work featured more than once in either
Better Homes and Gardens or
Southern Living (I can't remember which), and is one of the approved by the NRHP for doing restorations on their designated properties.
When I saw him with his dad coming to check out my place for the first time, I felt like I was about to show Monet a finger painting I made in pre-K...
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He gave me a lot of great advice, including:
Do all of your outside projects on the house first. His reason: "I can't tell you how many times I have done a job where someone did all of their inside work first, then started the outside work only to find out that there was significant damage on the outside that merited cutting into the wall and into the finished room, so not only did they have an outside repair, they also had to repair the inside room they had already finished. If they had finished the outside first, they would have saved more money and time by not having to do the interior twice."
Always figure double what you expect your project to cost to make sure you've budgeted enough for your project. His reason: "If you figure exactly what you think it will cost, you could rip into that wall or remove that dropped ceiling ready to prep and paint or just insulate and discover you've got another two or three things going on that will have to get addressed first. If you can, try to have at least triple financially available than what you think you're going to need in supplies just in case you have a major issue. You never want to let a project get to the point you get overwhelmed. Baby steps!"
DO NOT start more than one project at a time! I think he said this to me no less than 20 times... His reason: "You will feel more accomplished and less overwhelmed if you see each project to completion before you start your next one. If you start more than one at once, before you know it you'll have your house torn apart and a mess on your hands and you will be financially deeper than you meant to go at once." The exception: "If you're still in the outdoor phase, you could start one project inside for your 'rainy day work' when the weather isn't agreeable to do your outside projects."
Although I technically have two projects going on right now (stripping and replacing siding and building the fence), I got brownie points for having the two upstairs rooms finished and the bookshelves were my rainy day project (which is now complete, so I can start stripping woodwork again in the main bedroom.
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) However, I lost half the brownie points for having stripped half of a door while it was still in the house on the hinges. As soon as my fence/well house project is complete, I will be taking it outside for a thorough stripping and sanding. He recommended that for my house I could get away with shellacking the woodwork instead of doing the faux graining since what I wanted was a darker wood look as close to the original shade of faux graining that I can be. He also said that base layer of green on the doors was the original color of the woodwork in my room and not a primer layer for faux graining.
I am taking Friday off, which means hopefully the fence will get finished and at least part of the well house will be built!
![Very Happy :-D](./images/smilies/icon_e_biggrin.gif)