The Holiday Project

Over the 4th of July weekend, the philosopher and I endeavored to improve a festering eyesore on the back quarter of our property. We have a workshop - a goodly sized one - that we use for all sorts of nefarious undertakings (like weed whacker maintenance, and woodworking projects, and dining room table refinishing, and lots of sundry storage).

The shop, though quite useful and watertight, looked pretty rough. Actually, that's an understatement. It looked like a heap. The small door was an interior door, slowly decaying from being exposed to the elements. The big double doors (the ones we drive the tractor through - yes, close your mouth - we have a tractor) are OSB. Waferboard. Pleh. We don't think it had been painted in at least 20 years, and some of the siding had actually turned to dust. We had a goodly amount of paint left over from when we painted the house exterior, so we undertook a Herculean labor. Replace the damaged siding slats. Kill as many of the mud daubers, spiders, paper wasps, daddy longlegs, and other creatures who un-naturally thought the shop walls were their homes. Sand the mildew off the trim, and then prime and paint the whole mess.

Here's the "Before" (but after we replaced the small door with a steel exterior door):


Then, after three days of hard labor and less than $150 outlaid, here's the after!


Now when you pull into our driveway, you don't see this looming hulk in the field and wonder whether or not it is part of this property. You see a nice workshop that, given the opportunity, would be fun to spend some time in routing a picture frame for a favored work of art. And the completed project also appeases my sense of orderliness and tidiness - it matches the house!