As we slowly improved the interior of my mother’s childhood home over the past two years, the outside patiently waited its turn. In late 2023, however, the neglected exterior began begging for attention. That’s why we’re putting new boards on an old house. For those who came in late, here’s a little background.

Before the inside carpentry work began a major cleaning was required. The folks who moved out left piles of clothes on the floor along with untied garbage bags. A lifeless refrigerator was well stocked, plus packages of unopened sandwich meat were in a burn pit near the back door. The aromatic buffet fostered a roach infestation of biblical proportions.

Not having access to an oxygen mask, I borrowed a trick from President Bill Clinton and didn’t inhale. After disposing of rank garbage, the next step was to eliminate brazen roaches. Five gallons of Home Defense spray were dispensed, plus powder, tablets, and traps. Salt-filled shotgun shells were the only unused tools in my arsenal.

Regular treatments over several months finally squelched the bugs. I then began scraping paint off walls and ceilings as Jane washed them. She scrubbed using commercial-grade cleansers and disinfectants. It was so nasty I felt sorry for our rubber gloves.

The attic also needed a major cleaning. Decades ago my mother and I vacuumed much of the dirt and dust. Cracks in the clapboard siding had allowed dirt dobbers to invade and generously adorn the rafters. As I knocked their earthen clumps into five gallon buckets, Mama vacuumed.

I then stapled screen wire across the attic’s end walls to keep insects out. The house was built from green lumber cut from the farm in the 1930s. Those boards had dried and left substantial gaps. The openings weren’t noticeable from the ground, but an inside view showed streams of sunlight.

On my recent attic excursions, I found that the screen wire had been effective in keeping insects out, but dirt and dust had been steadily drifting in. I removed heavily-soiled insulation and vacuumed the boards multiple times. Another session is needed before new insulation is added.

Cleaning the attic comes with challenges, such as reaching all the way to the front and back walls. In the middle of the house I can stand up, so it’s relatively easy. To access other sections, however, I sit on a board and use a long extension on a shop vac. And I wear a hard hat. One minor nail encounter proved I’m not as hard-headed as some have suggested.

With fresh paint and most other interior work completed, our focus finally shifted to the exterior. My initial plan was to replace a few boards and seal cracks with strips of wood and fillers. But as I pondered over the project, I realized a piddler with sketchy credentials lacked the skills to do it correctly.

Mart Sikes, a renovation enthusiast, began working there near the end of 2023. Like many old houses, when one board was removed it revealed another that needed replacing. That brought about, however, an unexpected benefit of being able to insulate hollow walls.

We removed the lower boards on the front of the house, which faces south. After suctioning and blowing out almost 90 years of dirt, dust, and wasp nests, we cut one inch foam boards to fit between the studs. Adding two more layers provided a total of three inches.

Afternoon sun had been unkind to the fully-exposed west wall. That’s where we began working next. Those planks were in the worst condition, plus windows needed attention. Rain had been seeping in behind one window, discreetly damaging unseen wood. The renovation became a bigger project than expected, because I eventually decided to do it the right way instead of patching it.

Patches are sometimes okay, but are seldom the best way. That’s true of carpentry and countless undertakings. It’s even more true of life and faith. It’s tempting to choose the easiest fix, but our relationships with God and our fellow man deserve our best efforts.  

Years of neglect and the passage of time has taken a heavy toll on those walls; restoration, though, should prevent their further downfall. Each day I’m warmly reminded of the satisfaction that comes with doing something the right way instead of patching it. That’s why we’re putting new boards on an old house.