We hired a contractor to come out and rebuild the front and side porches, since both were riddled with wood-rot and falling apart under our feet. He also fixed some soffiting above the porch and some rotting wood siding on the house. We hired a local guy because we want our money to stay here in the community, but promptly started to second guess ourselves when we read in the paper that his son and one of the guys he had helping him were just arrested for distributing dozens of pounds of Methamphetimine. I asked him never to bring that other guy around again, and for the rest of the job he brought a lady-friend of his to help. As you can see in the above and below pictures, it ended up turning out alright. He was on time every morning and showed up every day until the job was done, which is more than I can say for the contractors we hired in Denver.

I’m still a little upset at myself for even having to hire someone to do this stuff. Isn’t our desire to homestead supposed to involve a strict DIY mentality? A lot of people buy land and camp on it in a trailer or yurt until they build their entire homes with their very own hands. And I can’t even build a little side porch? Our next door neighbor used to be a shop class teacher and he is working on a few projects this summer around his place. I’m hoping he’ll let me “help” him so I can learn a few things. I enjoy my work in marketing and it pays well, but I am SICK of not knowing how to fix and build my own stuff. This ineptitude simply has to stop.

That being said, it wasn’t exactly like we sat on our rear-ends all weekend. For now at least – I figure it’s good to leave the skilled jobs to the professionals (for lack of a better word in this case) when it comes to the home we plan on living in for many years to come. But we are perfectly capable of a little hard work as unskilled labor. I personally filled this roll-away dumpster to the full-line over the last couple of weekends: