Kenn and I love our home, which we have named The Cabin. We’ve lived here for six and a half years and sometimes I still can’t believe it’s ours. While we will probably never own a cabin in the mountains (a dream of mine), our house is the next best thing; the only thing missing are the mountains. Even though we may don’t have mountains, we do have four acres of mostly wooded property and the north Georgia mountains are just a few hours away.

As much as we love The Cabin, like all homes, it comes with it’s share of not-so-fun stuff. Y’all know what I’m talking about – the unexpected expenses that can hit without warning. Last year we had several of those. One of the most unexpected was having to replace the siding on our chimney. The Cabin, including the chimney, has wood siding. Last summer we went through a couple of extremely rainy periods. During one of those I saw something I couldn’t identify on the deck and went out to see what it was. “It” was a soggy piece of siding and insulation that had fallen off the chimney. Once things dried out a little, Kenn got out to see how far the damage extended. The answer was: pretty much all the way up the chimney. We are experienced renovators, but this was far beyond our capabilities. Fortunately, one of our youngest son’s friends works in his father’s construction business so we contacted him for recommendations. (We’ve know this guy forever. We watched him grow up and he was one of the herd of boys we frequently had at our house on weekends.) Bryce came out on his free time, removed the old siding, reinforced a couple of areas, re-framed everything, and dried it in. He finished in mid-August 2023.

Then began the search for siding. We had no idea getting siding was going to be such an arduous process. Bryce recommended the company that does siding for his dad, but we just couldn’t get things coordinated with the owner. We then had to put the process on hold while we were on our road trip. Once we got back, we (or rather, Kenn) took a deep breath, and began the process of calling contractors and getting quotes. Once again, this was much harder than it should have been. Some people came to the house, took measurements, and never gave us quotes. One would only do unfinished wood siding; we would have had to pay yet someone else to stain it. No thanks. My “favorite” was the day we had two different contractors coming out a couple of hours apart. The first one ran a little late and was still here when the second contractor showed up early. The second guy completely lost his shizz because someone else was here. He went on a rant and refused to even give us a quote because we were obviously “only looking for the lowest price and that would not be him.” I’m assuming he charges more for his mind-reading capabilites since he had no idea what we were actually looking for. However, I can promise him that he will never get any business from us and I will make sure to tell others looking for recommendations how unprofessional he was.

It took until November before we finally found a good, responsive contractor. They gave us a quote and multiple siding options to choose from. We ran into a few delays. The first siding we chose had been discontinued. The second option was available but there were some supply chain issues (some weather related) so the materials didn’t come in until last week. As promised, they put us on their schedule as soon as the materials came in. There were a couple of small glitches that got smoothed over quickly and most importantly, WE NOW HAVE SIDING ON THE CHIMNEY! Here’s hoping this is the last repair we will need to make for a while.

What are your favorite – and least favorite – parts of home ownership?