Before....

before work
Originally uploaded by dieselboi.

today, i chose to stay close to home. back in winter, (when it was sunny, dry and warm) i chose to start a fateful project. i made the fateful decision thinking that the rain would never come. we're in oregon brett! our domicile is from 1890. we've done some serious work to the house, but each project is a small step to the end product. the project on the right is our mudroom. over the past few years, we've had some birds and wasps crashing in our soffit because they were 110 years old and cupped. before birds took nest again, i chose to tear the trim boards and soffits down. boy did i find some treasures. one whole portion of the mudroom was full of old wasp nests. some may have been dormant. i was scared.
well, guess what - the next day it began raining and hasn't stopped. with no gutters, the rain just flows off the roof, onto the driveway and into the basement.... not really.....yes really.....not really......
today, i got back out there and installed new soffits and trim boards. it wasn't easy as there was some "old" issues to deal with. what i thought would take only a couple of hours took me the whole day. i only screwed up with measuring once and didn't injure myself at all. after 6 hours, lunch, 2 sheets of plywood, a few 6" x 1" boards, i was just worn out. also, i was out of supplies. some joy came out of this - i got to use power tools like circular saws, table saws and sawsaws. i got to use 2 different kinds of nail guns, including a contractor nailer like the one mel gibson used on lethal weapon 1 to kill the bad guy. the dogs even came out to help me. below is a kinda "after."

to put a cool ass spin on this - while i was working on the ladder, i looked down to the bird bath and our resident bluebird was in there taking a bath. trouble was - the water was old and dirty. i proceeded to clean the bath out and re-fill it will new water. after awhile, i was concerned i had upset some balance because bluey wasn't around. while i was cleaning up though, bluey was back giving himself a bath. it was great.