Memoirs

Before and After Siding

Rare is the house that has a lot of history before it receives siding for the first time. This is one of them.

It waited 70 years for siding to be completed and the heating system installation 80% near finished. By the grace of God, gutters may actually get onto the house by August of 2022! Insulation, electrical wiring, running water, and rough base floors were done by 1988.

Now as to who did what when, starting with a broader history of the property and its owners:

Faith, the housewife, was born in 1954. David, the carpenter, was born in 1956. Between these two years back in the 50’s, their house began to be built. A foundation, wood frame, and roof was constructed. There was no running water, electricity, heating system, siding, or anything else other than the house’s bare bone structure. That’s when the building quit receiving work upon it.

Around 1973, David’s parents purchased the property for their then seventeen year old son to work and make payments on. About five years later, David married his first wife. They moved into this house in 1978 approximately, without modern necessities like heat, electric, or running water.

In 1988, David divorced his first wife and married Faith. Between 1988 and 2022, for 34 years, Faith took over where the first wife left off with the home construction project. Walls were added. Exposed electrical wires and outlets were covered. Inside doors didn’t come until near the turn of the century in 2000.

Also in 1988, besides the house’s floors being like one of a barn hay loft where items can be dropped through the holes in the floor to the basement below, the front door was like those you see on a barn. It wasn’t a manufactured door meant to stay on a house, but rather a “temporary” rough-cut heavy door without windows or paint.

Faith eventually began to photograph her house, once she realized construction on it wasn’t going to occur as she thought it would. She thought maybe her carpenter husband needed some help to “see” the how badly work is needed on his own home far more than what anyone else could need. This is why there are these before siding photos to show here:

Dave and Faith put up the siding on their house. Professionals were hired to put on the new roof and paint on the wood siding, trim, and doors.

Pete Lopez from Silver Fox Gutters installed gutters onto the house on Thursday, July 28, 2022. On Monday, April 5, 2021, the siding was ordered. On Monday, May 10, 2021, the siding arrived. On Wednesday, August 4, 2021, the first board was nailed onto the house. The next day siding was added was on Wednesday, September 8, 2021. On Tuesday, June 7, 2022, the last siding board was attached to the house.

On Wednesday, June 16, 2021, the painter finally came to talk about painting the house. He primed some boards and then left for a year. On Tuesday, June 14, 2022, this same painter (Anthony Alongi), came to add color to the siding. On Friday, July 1, 2022, Mr. Alongi quit painting and said he’d be back to do touch ups. This info is up to date as of Saturday, November 19, 2022. Anthony hasn’t been back yet; nor has he made contact in reference to when, and/or if, touch ups will be done.

Previous to this, I watched my closest neighbor get their siding put onto their house the moment it was ready for that stage of work. It was done from start to finish in TWO days… a Wednesday and Thursday on September 16th and 17th of 2020. Their siding was already stained when the boards went up, so they had no waiting for anything more after that.

How long did I wait, once an order for siding boards that had to be paid for was made? ONE YEAR and FOUR MONTHS! This is only one stage of construction. Much has been done over the past 70 years, but then given that length of time has past already, the house should be finished by now and it is not. There is lots of work yet to do to get the house done for the first time. It is livable, but not market ready.

Many are homeless and would tell me I have much to be thankful for. I don’t deny it, but what others deny is my need to share the traumatic ordeals I’ve gone through in order to get things to be thankful for. My home is improved, but at the cost of having a lifetime of deep emotional scars from the battles to get here.

 


Postscripted to add on 2023.5.16 — The official day for the outside of the house being covered is Friday, July 29, 2022. Jim Manny was the original person to install the gutters, but he never kept his word to come do the work. He made a commitment to do this more than a year before! Pete Lopez of Silverfox Gutters got the job done fairly fast and well on Thursday, July 28, 2022.