Extreme (not-so-much) Home Makeover

We've had the most painfully prolonged experience with our recent siding and roof replacement. Our area of town sustained significant hail damage during a storm Memorial Day 2008. We started working with our contractor the following week. We had multiple meetings with the saleswoman. We took several weeks to carefully choose our colors. And our order was placed last August. The dumpster was delivered mid-October. The roof was redone late-October.

And the dumpster just parked in our driveway through November. And then through December. We shoveled snow around it on January. We glared at it every day in February. We hardly even noticed it there in March. And then, one fabulous day near the end of April, they finished the siding and took away the monstrous maroon chunk of metal. Hallelujah!!!

Believe it or not, this nightmare is still not over!!! Now we're just people caught in the middle of a money-battle between our contractor and our insurance company. I'm really hoping it gets resolved soon.

Very soon.

But anyway, aside from the huge headache...I really like how things turned out!

Here is the before picture from last fall:
And here is the lovely rusted dumpster that adorned the front of our house for over half a year:


And here is my brave, handsome husband, who fearlessly climbed ladder and roof as my own stomach did somersaults just watching him. (I never knew until recently that I am afraid of heights!) I'm sure our neighbors can attest to the fact that this "little" painting project took up a really, really long time. I attribute this to the fact that Bill only worked on it part time in the evenings after work when he wasn't going to cub scout meetings or delivering the kids to various places. Oh, and also to the fact that he is the most perfectionistic person I've ever met in my life. And here is the finished project:

So, it's not really an "extreme" change. But it definitely looks a bit different.

Now I'm just praying for no more storm damage for the next 10 years. I really don't want to go through this again any time soon.