Monday, October 3, 2011

Real Progress on the Wrists; Siding Muscles

I received my Microsoft Ergonomic keyboard at home on Friday, and it really makes a huge difference.  I spent much of Sunday afternoon updating my notes for week 11 of the U.S. History class, without any real grief.

Now, I did something Saturday that has many muscles in pain, but they are mostly different muscles.  My daughter and son-in-law are converting their screened-in patio into an office.  This is a very common conversion around here now, simply because houses are all underwater--most houses are worth under $100,000, sometimes substantially under $100,000.  (Even though they bought their house when the economy looked about as low as it could go--it has since gone lower.)

Some guys they go to church with are contractors, and came over and did much of the heavy lifting on the framing of the addition; we helped them a few weeks ago with dry wall work (something that I have done before, back in the 1970s), and Saturday we helped them with siding the addition.

The house, like many less expensive homes in the Boise area, has vinyl siding.  We were able to reuse most of the siding that came off the old wall, and only needed to buy a small amount of new siding. I have never particularly liked vinyl siding as an exterior, because it never looks spectacular.  On the plus side, it is very stable: the ten year old siding, other than being a little dirty (which cleans up well), looks identical to the new siding which is the same color.  What this meant was that when we were done, it is was hard to tell which pieces were original, and which were new.

I have never done siding before, so this was a new and useful experience.  But I am feeling it now!

1 comment:

  1. I don't much like siding's aesthetics either - but its durability and lack of maintenance needs are an immense benefit.

    (Much like a metal or tile roof vs. tarred shingles.)

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