Want to meet new people? Paint your house!

In this town, old houses are often referred to by the names of their long-time owners or their former owners. Ours, built in 1910, is known as Old Mrs. Petesorich's house. How sad that a neat old home, worthy of its own personal identity, could be given over to long-term neglect and abuse. 

We were told that the person who sold the house was essentially a salvage-lord who bought dumpy homes and either rented them out cheaply or sold them for much more than they were worth. It made me sad, because Adam and I could see potential that nobody else seemed to be able to see and I thought, even with all of the work it would require, it was worth every penny. We didn't realize, when we bought the home, that fixing it up would evoke a sense of pride in those who knew and remembered it's former owner. 

 Little by little, Adam and I began making improvements. We started with some minor low-cost interior projects, just to make the place livable and planned to save the more expensive exterior projects for later. Unfortunately, we sprung a major leak in our roof, quickly forcing our attention outside. We reluctantly had our roof replaced which, to our surprise, made a huge improvement to the appearance of our home. It also exposed, in more detail, just how wretched the exterior paint job was. We decided then that we would devote the following summer to painting our house. 

We were amazed at how people came out of the woodwork to see what we were up to and to watch our progress. Daily, people would slowly drive by and give us thumbs-ups. Many people rolled their windows down to shout compliments while others simply walked up to offer their praise. Now, here's where the story gets really, awesomely small-townish: People we don't even know, talked about our paint job to other people we don't know (who apparently know us), who told Adam's sister that she had to come up and see it! She thought it was hilarious that everyone in Waterville seemed to be interested in the fact that we were painting our house! We even got a visit from the Mayor! (It was very nice to meet you Mr. DeVaney!) 

Thank you for all of the encouragement, everyone. You made the tedious task of house painting really fun for us and we are truly glad that you approve!