Moving On

After 7 years, 3 months, and 28 days of owning our Sienna, the sale of it closed on August 20th. We initially had planned to wait a few more years but circumstances came together earlier in the year where we were able to build again. This time however we went with a different, smaller builder.

From the 3 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, and 1800 square feet in our Sienna we now have 5 bedrooms, 3 1/2 baths, and 2604 square feet in our new house. We also have another 325 square feet of unfinished storage space on the second floor that we can finish off later. Our lot is bigger too, we went from .25 acres to .81 acres with thick woods behind us and a stream running through the back of the property. Among other things, the house includes a first floor guest room with a full bath, something that was really important to us as family gets older. We also have a front porch with space for rocking chairs, a feature we've always wanted but never had on our previous two houses.

From the comments I've gotten over the years this blog has been really useful to a lot of folks building with Ryan Homes so it'll stay up indefinitely. I may eventually post a few updates here and there from our new house as well. 

Quarantine Updates

It's been almost two years since I last posted and it's time for an update.

Like a lot of people we spent part of our time in quarantine last year doing home improvement projects.

The first thing we tackled in a weekend was staining our deck and fence. We had last done both back in 2015-2016 and it was time for an update. With the deck we thoroughly power washed it beforehand before using Behr Premium Advanced Deckover. The one we used was textured to be make the deck more slip resistant. A gallon and a half was enough to do our entire 12x16 foot deck.

For the fence we used Behr semi-transparent Waterproofing Stain & Sealer. It's supposed to be good for eight years on fences but I don't imagine I'd wait that long to paint it again. 

The rest of the updates involved our front door. I had been promising my wife a storm door since we moved in back in 2014 and finally got around to buying and installing one. For that we bought an Anderson Easy Install Aluminum Storm Door. The 45 minute "Easy Install" was more like two hours of sweating and a bit of swearing but it was fairly straightforward. The frame of the storm door fits into the existing frame of the door and is secured with screws. With the exception of having my wife hold the door in place while I put the first few screws in it was also something I was able to do by myself. The only downside we found was that with our house facing east and getting direct sunlight the storm door handle gets exceptionally hot to the touch. We solved that by sliding the finger of an old glove over it.

With the storm door in place my wife painted the front door with Behr Hidden Sea Glass.

The last update to the front door was something else I'd had on my list for a while. I replaced the existing keyed lock with a Nest X Yale lock. I had looked at others but since we already have a Nest Hello doorbell and a Nest Cam it made more sense to keep everything under one app. Installation was very simple and made for a worthy upgrade. Especially with not having a covered front porch, it's very convenient when it's raining to unlock the door prior to getting out of the car and not having to fumble with keys. Everybody has their own door code too (up to eight numbers) and when we went away on vacation for a week later in the summer I was able to set up a temporary code for our neighbors that picked up our mail and fed our cats.