So much has happened at The Maple House this week!

On Monday, the company replacing my gutters came to remove them. The gutters were so full of debris and had rusted to the point they had a crack running the length of the entire gutters. When I pushed on it, the crack widened.

All I could think was that I was so happy we were having these gutters replaced and that I was so thankful the gutter in the dining room broke. If that hadn’t happened, we probably wouldn’t have had them replaced and would’ve had no idea the amount of water seeping into the house every rainfall.

The gutter guys finished around noon and Bryan was already at the house ready to get started on the fascia and soffit repairs. The plan had been to replace the fascia that was rotted and leave the ones in good condition. When the gutters were removed, we realized there were NO face boards on my entire house. Not only that, but a drip edge had never been installed when the house was re-roofed last year, so the water had dripped off the roof, behind the gutters and dry-rotted all the stringers. Also, a lack of face-boards meant zero support for the gutters, which literally fell down once they got too heavy with water. Oh, and no face-boards means free access to any rodent who would like to take up residence in our warm, quiet attic. When I walked outside, I saw the insides of my house. It’s like someone took off her shirt, but her nipple covers weren’t there.

Long story short, Bryan had to sister every stringer on the ENTIRE house, then repair the soffit using my salvaged bead board and add face boards to the ENTIRE house. The two-day job turned into a five-day job and nearly tripled in price. Bryan cleaned hundreds of squirrel nests out of our stringers, which included several squirrel skeletons. This was the worst case scenario that I hadn’t even thought of, but while I am overwhelmed, I still can’t help but feel thankful that we found it before our interior repairs were completed and we had tenants living here. This could have been so much worse.

The gutter guys were supposed to come back on Thursday to put new gutters on, but I had to push them back since the fascia job turned out to be much bigger than planned. So, we will see when the are free to come back out. In the meantime, The Maple House is rodent free and at least there’s nothing pushing water against the house anymore.