We feel like it's time for a little before and after -- we spent Saturday putting a finish coat on the front of the house -- actually we spent it adding primer over stain spots (see below) and then putting another finish coat on. We used a stain blocking primer on any of the nail holes and on any areas that appeared to be staining. In many places you can still see the joints of the clapboards. See the bottom photo -- it is of a spot that was not spot primed. We'll go back and prime over that spot next time it looks like we'll get through the day without rain.

Regardless of our frustration at the slow pace of the project, it is gratifying to see the progress that Leigh and I have made on the weekends.

Does anyone have suggestions about what we should do about this staining? We're wondering if the wet paint/primer is drawing the stain out and if that will be all that will happen -- or if it is actually wet underneath and will cause problems for us down the road. Thoughts?On another note, we had a couple fellow Newburyport residents and blog followers stop by to check out the house in person -- Joe and Mary Beth -- good to meet you. Hope we'll see you around town. (hope we got the names right). On that note - if any you are curious and would like to stop by the house, we are there most Friday, Saturday and Sundays. Just remember it is a construction site and there are lots of ways to hurt yourself.

Well, Leigh and I have been busy for the last couple of weeks putting the clapboards on the front of the house. Here you can see that they go all the way up to the tops of the second floor windows. We stopped there because we are actually going to remove the top trim on the windows and put a fascia board there...

Here you can see the roof line of the front entry. Mark B. put this up so that we could complete the siding before the front entry is done. It was very tricky to get the angle right on the cut of these boards. When we were doing the left side, it took all day to do 5 boards. However, Leigh devised a system where she basically made a jig so that she was able to re-produce the angel. As a result we were able to do the other side much faster. All in all it took us about 5 days to completely side the house and prep it for paint.

Today, while I was at work, Leigh and Mark Eldredge (the mason) worked. Above you can see the handy work of Mark E who built the foundation for the front entry. This will allow Mark B. to build the entry and for the front of the house to be enclosed.

We spent about two days prepping the house - filling nail holes, sanding, priming etc to get it ready for painting. We're using flat "super white" Duration by Sherwin Williams. This paint has a lifetime guarantee so hopefully we're good! Leigh painted about half of the front today and hopefully we'll finish it up this week.

It's worth noting that based on the contractual schedule, we should be moving in in two weeks...BUT we still have a 15 foot hole in the backyard and no idea when it is going to be filled with cement! So the story goes...

So with a weekend of nice weather we were able to get quite a bit done. You can see from the photo above that about 3/4 of the front has clap boards have made it on to the house. Friday and Saturday were really prolific days for siding; Sunday we ran into some technical difficulties. In the center of the photo you can see the roof line of what will be the front entry. This area has caused some trouble for us. On Friday, Mark installed the flashing for the future roof so that we could continue siding. The angle was pretty tricky and took some trial and error. Once we got up to the windows we discovered that they were 1/4" off...in other words the window on the right was 1/4" higher than the window on the left. This may not seem like a huge problem but if it stays that way it will make all of the clapboards look uneven. So we started on the other side, only to discover that the flashing for the soon to be entry roof was higher on the right than on the left....hmmm

So, we've asked Mark to come take a look and make adjustments on Monday.

Here's Leigh making some of the angled cuts with a box knife.

And here's the right side the house where we are almost done shingling

Some people have asked us why were are putting clapboards on the front and shingles on the sides...

We'll there are several reasons. First, that's how it was. We like the look - it's very common on Nantucket and in other seaport towns. We think it goes back quite awhile when clapboards were much more expensive than shingles and so the front was the formal side and the other sides were where they pinched pennies.

We like the look of weathered white cedar and they last for 30 years without paint.

That's all for now...

A local mason, Mark Eldredge, has started working on restoring the chimney. He came over the weekend to drop off scaffolding and today he started taking down the chimney. You can see in the following photo that we now have a large hole in the roof...but it's nice to see some tangible progress.

This is a rare sighting of Mark B working on the house. Four of us worked on Friday and were able to accomplish quite a bit. Mark and Rocky installed three new windows and put some flashing on where the entry roof will be. Leigh and I continued applying shingles to the side of the house and we got a couple of more clap boards on the front.

In the following photo you can see that I am enjoying a cold glass of lemonade which our kind neighbors brought over to us on a silver tray...