Our Home Renovation

On Saturday at 8:00 am, we had 14 tons of gravel delivered to the Sheridan House. Sound like a lot? It is. There was a slight mix-up that led to my ordering about 7 tons too much. While slightly humorous in many ways, there’s no way around the fact that it’s a lot of work to move 7 tons of gravel by hand.
Last week I needed to order gravel for the driveway. We figured that we needed about 4.5-5 cubic yards of what is called road rock. I called to inquire about the price per yard. I was informed that they don’t measure gravel by the yard, but instead by the ton. I was told that it costs “four eighty five per ton.” I asked the lady if she know how many tons it is per yard approximately. “No sir,” she replied. “Would you be picking it up or having it delivered?” I told her that I had a small trailer that could hold about half a ton and could maybe use that. “Keep in mind that there’s a $15 minimum” she said. Really having no idea about anything to do with gravel, I asked, “Are we talking four dollars and eighty-five cents per ton, or four hundred and eighty-five dollars per ton?” She chuckled and replied “four dollars.” Oh. wow. That’s ridiculously cheap. What the heck else can you buy a ton of for less than $5??

Still unsure of how much I needed, I did get the lady to tell me that a full dump truck load was about 15 tons. A friend told me that dump trucks are usually 5 or 10 yards, and that he figured 15 tons was a 5 yard load. So, that’s what I went with - and ordered a full load.

It was delivered Saturday morning and turned out to be about 10 yards - twice as much as we had figured. The driver was supposed to dump half the load in front of the house and the rest behind the garage. Instead, it all came out at once, so it’s all in the front driveway. We shoveled and moved several tons, but still have another 2 tons or so to move. Anybody need some gravel?

Here’s what the front door of the Sheridan House looks like:

The dilemma is whether to refinish it, leaving it as natural wood (depending on the color of the wood, maybe stain it) and using some heavy-duty polyurethane -or- paint the door red to match the shutters on the front of the house.

Originally I was planning on sanding the door to see how well it cleaned up and then unless it was in too bad of shape, keep it as natural wood. However, the more I’ve thought about it, the door is exposed to a lot of moisture since there are no eaves. That being the case, a natural wood door means a lot of upkeep to maintain. Painting it would still look good but mean less maintenance.

What do you think? If it were your door, would you prefer it painted or stained considering the maintenance? There’s no guarantee that whoever buys the house will be interested in refinishing the door every few years to keep it looking nice. Thoughts?

Here’s a photo of the front of the house so you can see the color of the shutters (which the door would match if painted).

The garage roof is about 75% done. It’s looking fantastic - such a huge improvement (before photos). I can’t wait to see the garage painted and the carriage doors tuned up.

My brother and a friend have been working on it the last couple days. Hopefully I’ll be able to get up there tomorrow and help finish it (I have to admit that I really like roofing, though I know that probably sounds like a kid saying that he likes homework).

Once the garage roof is finished, we’ll move back inside. The drywall/plaster guys are coming either on Wednesday or Thursday this week and hopefully we’ll get the front sidewalk formed up so we can have concrete delivered on Friday.

As far as the list from the other day goes:

• toilet is installed
• drain isn’t unclogged yet
• bathroom has first coat of paint, but the color is a little off, so we have to adjust that
• front sidewalk is all broken up and half has been removed

Visible progress feels so good!

Here is a series of photos showing the front of the Sheridan House before, during and almost done. A couple things to note: You’ll have to excuse the garbage cans in front of the house, as Friday is garbage day and they’re full of plaster debris so I didn’t feel like dragging them out of the way. Also, there are still shutters to be put up. If you’re anxious and don’t want to wait until both sets are up, you can look at the photos I just uploaded to Flickr and see how the small (bathroom) window turned out with the shutters.

It’s so good to finally see things starting to come together. The new front windows make a HUGE difference and the shutters will really bring everything together and add the extra cottage appeal that the house deserves. (As an aside, the shutters I’ve mentioned a few times are original from the house. They were taken down when the aluminum siding was put on a while back and haven’t been back up since.)

Here’s a few other exterior photos (click to see them larger):