Before Pictures of the Vinyl Siding on our Home

Man, oh man, what a journey this has been. Hiring someone to install new vinyl siding on our house has been one of the most stressful and expensive home projects to date.

Our initial plan was to rip off the old vinyl siding and salvage the wood siding underneath. But alas, our plans didn’t pan out. The siding underneath was in bad shape and had lead paint, so all we could do was put more siding over it. I don’t love vinyl siding, but since we have decided to sell in the next year or so, and since many people do not want the maintenance of wood, we decided to use vinyl again. Is it my favorite part of the house? No. But, I do think it makes a big difference.

The old siding was in terrible shape and the stuff underneath was even worse…

On home improvement TV shows, all we see is the insane before and after. Maybe we see one minute of drama, but getting the siding to this point was a lot more stress than you’ll ever see on TV. It was a lot of ho-humming over whether I could afford $3 TJ’s flowers because we needed to save money. It was a lot of getting the timeline pushed back 4 MONTHS due to rain. It was a lot of worrying about the professionalism of the subcontractors. And although it’s done, I’m still worrying if I made the right choices. Did I chose the right color? Did I hire the right folks? Did I spend too much money? Will I ever get that investment back?!?!

After new vinyl siding!

Real life doesn’t wrap itself up in tidy, half-hour TV show bows. But life and renovations are marathon, not a sprint, I suppose.

And we still have a long way to go—painting the underside of the house black, so the door doesn’t look like a portal to a new dimension, new landscaping, etc.— but I think it’s important to recognize progress.

What progress are you making– in home or in life? I’d love to hear about it in the comments!