Vinyl Removed and Painted Blue

EXPOSE

"I want mashed potatoes, chicken fried steak, green beans, mac n cheese, green jello, strawberry shortcake, and a roll!"

When I was a kid my parents used to take us to Luby's.  With a set of eyes ten times bigger than my stomach I always bit off just a little more than I could chew.

Things really don't change too much when you grow up.  You may not clean out Luby's anymore, but you do other things, like buying a 115 year old house with a laundry list of inspection deficiencies.  I mean, how difficult could it be?  I have a crowbar and a hammer, right?

Right.

Well, safety is a top priority, so I went to work replacing a bunch of old electric plugs with GFCI's. I started in all the obvious places first, like the kitchen and the bathrooms.  It was so easy I even threw in the GFCI's on the porch.  They may get hit by a stray raindrop after all.

"Hey Julie check this out," I said.  She didn't respond.  She was too busy trying to eliminate the smell of cat urine from the air ducts.

The plug on the porch wasn't mounted, but hovered unattached in the vinyl siding.  I hate cheesy, half ass work, a character trait which may end up being the death of me.

I pulled very gently on the vinyl siding around the plug trying to find the wood underneath.  That's when I got my first peak of it.  You know what it's like the first time you see it.  My heart raced.  Pulling back the processed, fake wood grain I gasped at the sight of pure, clean virgin wood for the first time!

"Why the hell would they cover that 115 year old wood with vinyl?!" I exclaimed.

Something changed deep inside.  I no longer cared for replacing plugs, but became a man on a mission.  A mission to expose this house.

"I'm going to rip it off," I said to myself.

I glanced across the street.  Like ants on a mound painters crawled around my neighbor's home. Turning back to my wall I hooked my index finger inside the vinyl.  It moved easy, almost like it was giving itself to me.

I took another look across the street.  "I wonder how much they would charge to paint my house?" I thought.

The next thing I knew I gripped the bottom of the vinyl and yanked.

"Prrrdddddppp!"  It sounded like a gigantic zipper.  It came off so easy.  Looking up I saw an 8' by 10' section of vinyl dangling by a thread.  Aluminum paper covered the wall, so I still had no idea of what I had gotten myself into.

"What's going on out there?" Julie called from the living room.

"Oh, nothing," I replied.

With a deep sense of dread I reached slowly up to the shiny, silver paper.  I tore off the tiniest section.  It was wood.  I grabbed a handful and tore into it like a kid at Christmas.  After about 30 seconds I stood on my porch, surrounded by exploded vinyl, aluminum paper, staples and the most perfect wood siding you have ever seen.  I remained for several minutes taking in all of the amazing details that someone years ago had covered in plastic.

"What are you..."  Julie stood at the door in amazement.

"Just replacing the old plugs," I said