Archive for August, 2006
We continue to put up siding and trim. The house trim (20′ long cornerboards, window trim, patio door trim, @#$!% vinyl soffits) is a time eater.
The front of the house is the first side we’ve done that is too wide to span with a single 12′ Hardiplank siding board (yes, this is a small house). As recommended by the manufacturer, we butt factory-finished ends together and put flashing behind the joint. Easy, but it does require cutting the correct end, which I’ve messed up a couple times. No biggie — we used those boards elsewhere.
Siding inside the first floor porch is done; just more trim work to do there. Upstairs has a long way to go. The porches aren’t a priority, but I work on them when I don’t have anything else to do.
The little pieces around the front windows consumed almost all of the small cut pieces that had been piling up. Excellent. Very little waste from the siding so far.
August 27th, 2006
We’re working our way around the house at our usual glacial pace. Green siding (Hardiplank heathered moss) is on 3 more walls, along with the trim (Azek cornerposts and window trim), and soffits. We did the roof shingles on the east side of the kitchen, so that’s complete now. The Cor-a-vent ridge vent was fairly simple to attach and it seems to be venting correctly.
Some of the trim is on the porch too. Sandy helped me put up some siding on the porch too (thanks!). The combination of the wide green siding and the wide white trim looks great.
The latest photos of my ‘lil homebuilding project. Click to enlarge.
August 20th, 2006
The north side wall of the house is done, and we’ve moved on to the third and final side of the kitchen wing. This wall was a learning experience for the window trim and gable finishing. It was all worked out and I like the result. I’ll build the back steps, paint the back door, and put up the light later.
This photo was taken Thursday morning. We put up the window trim and siding on the third side of the kitchen (where the scaffold is in the photo) Thursday even though rain stopped our work by about 1:00 in the afternoon.
August 11th, 2006
We completely finished one outside wall today. Only eight more to do. We’re doing everything — window and door trim, cornerboards, siding, soffit, caulk, and roof shingles — before moving the scaffold to the next wall. By the time we’ve worked our way around the house, we should be good at all this finish stuff.
I mentioned my fiber-cement siding in my last post, but I didn’t mention the Azek PVC trimboards and cornerboards. Yeah, it’s plastic … but it looks quite a bit like wood and it cuts and nails like wood too. The pre-formed cornerboards are cool; 20-foot long suckers that go up easy and the seam will never open up. No rot or painting either.
The windows and doors are trimmed with a 1″ thick, 5″ wide Azek board across the top; and 3/4″ 3.5″ wide Azek boards on the sides and bottom. That creates a small reveal between the top and side trim, and makes fitting them together simple (no struggle to get the pieces to join exactly).
More progress: the electrician began running wires this weekend (!!). Now, if I could only get a plumber started too …
The 100-degree heat wave stopped work three days last week, but seasonal temps are back and so are we. More home construction pics soon.
August 7th, 2006
The first of the siding is on the house. I finally settled on cement board siding after a long debate. It’s good looking stuff, is pre-painted, and works well with the trim at we’d already installed. Fiber-cement siding won’t rot and is supposed to hold paint for 15-years. My siding has a big 7″ exposure, which looks “rich” and works well with my big trim and other colonial-ish design features.
One concern with cement board siding is the silica dust created when the siding is cut. To minimize the dust, we bought the siding-shears recommended by the manufacturer. They work great — cut through the siding in no time and the dust is very minimal.
The siding on my kitchen-bathroom “wing” is white, as you can see in the photo. The rest of the house will be “heathered moss” green. Yes, it’s a 2-tone house.
August 2nd, 2006
