Exterior stained and just about done…

Seeing as I hate painting with the fire of at least a few suns, I would have thought that staining would be an equally unfavourable task. It was actually quite a lot of fun and I went about applying it with a spring in my step…splattering Super Deck all over my shoes (note, that stuff doesn’t give up lightly).

The stain was a little odd to see all at once, but it’s settling into itself beautifully to a very rich, finished looking colour.  If I do say so myself, Little Yellow looks bloody lovely.

I got to insulating the ceiling over the doorway today and decided to cover it with 1/4″ T&G cedar closet liner which nicely resembles the colour of the redwood porch. There’s also wire sticking out for a light that will eventually reside on the redwood 2×4 alongside the porch window.

It hit me as I stepped back to admire the newly paneled/insulated doorway that that’s basically the exterior done. I have a few little detail type things I’d like to do, but all of the really big scary things are pretty much over with. Looking from the big-house window to my little darling outside I feel so freakin’ relieved, it’s not even funny.

All of the small aspects that bothered me or looked strange for so long have been remedied in one way or another and I barely even notice them anymore. When I see it, it looks like a house. When other people see it it looks like a house. So much so, that a passerby the other day thought I was reworking some kind of prefab existing structure. Hell, I can hardly believe that all the scattered projects have amounted to an entire house, however tiny.

I just went back through old pictures from when Little Yellow consisted of a trailer, a 69 Chevy pick up full of lumber and a general feeling of ‘holy shit, you kind of have to make this now’. I’m a bit overwhelmed with all the choices and decisions that that face me on the interior, but I’ve bumbled my way into this, so I’ll just have to bumble my way out again. One piece of wall paneling at a time…

Fascia boards and problem saving drip edges…

The finished fascia boards are finally up! I eventually settled on a curved design for the end boards and cut up the 4 pieces from the last redwood 1×12 before putting it all together the other day in glorious, good omen type sunshine.

As one may have construed from the history of my house, things don’t usually turn out square, and my roof is no exception. Up there by themselves, the fascia boards looked ok at the roofline from a distance, but any not-so-close inspection would reveal the bare edge of the plywood bending all willy nilly and the nice, straight fascia board highlighting the not-squareness of it in fine form.

But then enter the drip edges. To whoever invented these wonderful, metal, water repelling flashings, I would like to say thank you. I would like to say thank you multiple times and bounce around a while because these things are brilliant, functional and cover a shit ton of mistakes.

We didn’t follow the guidelines and buy the fancy, pricey, colour coordinated ones from the roofing company, and we didn’t put them on first as you’re supposed to, but we did find these dandy ones at the hardware store in an entirely passable dark brown for $5.68 a piece, and we did get them up under the roofing far after the fact (today) with narry a hassle.

And it looks beautiful. I was finally able to put the last screws in the bottom of the roof to secure the new edges, and the whole house beams with a delightful air of completion.

Another thing I worked on today was caulking. I haven’t noticed any other tiny housers mention this part so I don’t know if it’s common practice, but my cedar boards (particularly the stuff I did a while back) don’t exactly fit into each side like Cinderella’s slipper.

I find them uncomfortably inconsistent, ranging from almost no gap, to 1/16″ or 1/8″ gap without much warning. I’m concerned about water getting into the cracks and causing trouble, so I opted to run a thin bead of caulk along them wherever the siding ends.

Around the corners and window borders I went, cussing under my breath at the ‘drip free’ caulk dispenser scam that covered me in silicone. At least it dries clear, hopefully my mistakes will blend better into the wood than my hair.

Siding finished…

So I didn’t quite make it to finishing the exterior by today as I had ambitiously planned, but I did make a bunch of progress and have completely finished the siding! All around between the rafters, in the roof triangles and everywhere but just above the loft windows where I am planning something different.

One of the reasons I didn’t make the ‘Sunday get ‘er done’ goal is that I spent my entire Friday afternoon redoing the siding and window border on the hitch end of the house. This had been the first border we’d made and the first siding I put up by myself and, as learning curves often are, both were shifty at best. I’m glad I fixed it while I did, though in doing so I used up most of the normal coloured boards and was left with only dark, interesting sort of ones for the triangles. It makes the top colour pretty different from the bottom, but I’ve decided it adds character.

Another reason is that I’m having trouble sourcing wood for my fascia boards. Ideally, I’d like to use redwood since we’ve used so much of it already, but I’m finding it damn near impossible to find a long length 1×6 redwood. It doesn’t help that lumber generally comes in standard lengths, like 18′ or 20′ and that my roof is of the 20′ 4″ variety. Those last 4 inches are out to get me.

I’m so pleased with today though! Somehow, I appear to have ordered the precise amount of siding we needed and despite my concerns at having bought too much, I was left with a single board by the end. Putting the last piece up on the front of the house was incredibly liberating. I’ve been hoarding little scraps of cedar from my dad’s kindling pile since the early siding stages but I’ll be happy to burn the buggers now

Of painting, squint windows and getting siding between the rafters…

In my quest to get the outside done, I have to inevitably reason with things I’ve been putting off. One of these things is painting. Painting window borders to be exact, and I have an irrational dislike for painting window borders. Generally, I try to do it in sections so as not to have too much at once, but this always happens to backfire and I end up with more and more bouts of the task.

So this time I went for it, the whole hog as they say, and finally reached the light at the end of the sticky painting tunnel. I rejoiced in my accomplishment for a few glorious moments then found out I measured the two top boards for the loft windows wrong and will have to redo them in the morning. Darn.

The day’s highlight was definitely how the bump out windows came together. I haven’t written about the issues we had with them because it was really pissing me off and I was worried that they wouldn’t look nice, but as they are lovely I feel I can face the subject.

Basically, there is a super awkward amount of space surrounding the sides of each of the three big windows. The front one in particular is tricky because it isn’t centered so very well and neither side had enough for a 2×4 border. I eventually decided (actually, I think it was my mother’s idea) to use 2x2s instead and filled the gaps with a strip of some cedar fence boards that my neighbor gave me.

They happen to be almost the perfect thickness to look nonchalant and since they’re the same wood as the siding, it’s surprisingly nice looking. In fact, I feel it’s almost as though we meant it.

A great deal of today was also spent making little pieces of siding to fit between the rafters. This part, I can imagine, would be a jolly little breeze if your house was square. If it’s like my house, it involves tweaking each side to dimensions that are very much not symmetrical and hoping that no one looks long enough to come to this realization. Things are also at a wicked angle up there for the drill motor, so most of my little crooked boards are haphazardly screwed in at laughable directions. Good thing most people aren’t 9 feet tall…

More plumbing, more siding and a bit of determination…

This has been a delightful little week of progression with wall paneling, plumbing, window borders and siding having all come on a fair ways. Perhaps the most exciting happening occurred on Sunday afternoon when my neighbor got the plumbing ready enough to hook up to the hose and I watched as real live FREAKIN water came into my house!!!!

There’s nothing connected to the pipes (like a sink) or anywhere for the water to go (like a drain) so we just attached a temporary bendy tube doohicky and stuck it out the window, but it totally worked and it was totally wonderful The next step is to put in a gas line from the water heater to a propane tank and figure out my sink and shower faucets/ drains. Looks like luck put metal support bars for the trailer directly under my planned locations so the latter should be interesting.

My dad has had a chance to work on the house for the first time in over a month and we’ve been putting up siding all over the place in the last few days. I had been in a sort of building stalemate with cedar siding for a little while so I’m really grateful for the help.

Sometimes it seems like there’s so much to do that it can get procrastinatingly overwhelming. I have tendencies to start on several hundred small projects (with no particular regard for a sensible order) leaving lots of things partially done. While this is fun for my short attention span, it does little for the feeling of accomplishment that comes with actually finishing something.

But! I have become recently determined and procrastinate I shall not! I will finish the exterior of Little Yellow by this coming Sunday! I am on a mission! I am excited! I may be underestimating my time frame. Right, Sunday…

More siding, more wall paneling, more insulation…

My sister and brother in law came up for a few days to help this weekend, just in time for the cold weather’s return. It’s been a while since she’s seen my house so I spent nearly all of the first day excitedly pointing at things and rambling about far distant plans of interior paint colours and kitchen cabinets (while her husband patiently worked on his car) but we did get up some siding onto the front and in by the doorway. She also did a fine job with the saw and cut up some new borders for the bump out windows which I hope to start painting soon.

First, though, we made a redwood border for around the porch overhang and spent a stupid amount of time trying to get it right. We figured we’d make them both at 45 degree angles which should meet up all nice and pretty, right? Well, in my world of carpentry, no. Just as well I’ve given up on the fantasy of a square house.

Interiorally…is that a word? Hmm. Interior wise, I spray foamed the other wheel well and am continuing on with wall paneling and insulation. It’s hard to believe that quite a few sections require only these two things before they are finished! I am just loving this inside work, it’s so gratifying and really makes things seem like you’re getting somewhere

I have been knocking around the thought of putting up some form of wainscoting in the great room and finally decided to go for it. Lowes sell another kind of 1/4″ pine wall paneling with a bead down the center, so I bought a bunch and put it up vertically to just above the window line.

I’m thinking that whatever moulding I end up using to cover the seam will hang further over the vertical panels so they look a bit shorter. I’d prefer them not to be so high (41″), but where they are now puts each panel at the perfect horizontal 2×4 in the wall framing and I’d rather not have to stick another board in there. Especially as I’m having to put in an extra 2×2 for support in the middle anyway so we don’t get bendy walls. Nobody likes a bendy wall…

Small progress, more spray foam and the evolution of squirrels…

As I appear to have recently contracted the PLAGUE, (and so has my mother) the last week has involved more couch sitting and tea drinking than house building. Not to be stifled, however, I have sniffed and sneezed my way through a few more projects nonetheless.

I got a start on the off-side cedar siding, put some new spray foam in the interior wheel well cavity and fixed a funky sliding mechanism in one of my windows that did more banging and stuttering than sliding.

For the record, the spray foam stuff I used first did not, and really did not go very well. Though it started promisingly enough, within a few days it proceeded to turn crumbly and disintegrated upon the slightest touch.

Luckily, I had two things on my side. 1, I waited to see how the first wheel well panned out before I sprayed the other, and 2, I didn’t move right on and close up the space before the disintegration occurred. To any who may think a brand called DAP might suffice in such a wheel well filling application, please think again.

Round two, aptly called ‘Great Stuff’ has proved to be much better. It is intended for window and door gaps, so it supposedly stays relatively flexible to accommodate expansion and contraction over time. I also bought and applied some fancy kind of caulk for the outside gap between the metal of the wells and the wood of the siding so any water will have to reckon with that before even getting to the spongy foam business.

For something completely different, the squirrels that frequent our porch rail feeder have evidently tired of the easy target and moved on to the so called ‘squirrel proof’ hanging bird feeder that resides just next to it.  During periods of couch sitting, my mother and I bore witness to their monumental evolutionary achievements and generally laughed our asses off. Squirrel proof? Not on this porch, buddy.

Teal paint, siding and jigsaw-cutting window notches…

The last few days I’ve been working on siding and making new window borders. The previous ones my dad and I made didn’t end up looking as nice as I’d like them to so we rethought and started over. Darned waste of the 4 hour intervals I waited before applying new coats of paint, but never mind.

This time I measured far more times than necessary (just in case it changed while I wasn’t looking) before cutting, sanding and painting. I bought some new stuff with primer in it and much to my delight, it looked beautiful after only 2 coats instead of the previous 3; I do hold quite a grudge against that particular colour of primer white.

I was so excited to get the siding up around the shiny new borders today that I almost didn’t care that I spent 3 hours cutting out the 2 notches and messed a whole board up before getting it right. I had tried to use a single, long board but didn’t find it physically possible for one of me (RIP cedar board) and settled with 2 instead.

I think it still looks alright so I’m letting it go; better 2 concise than one sloppy, even with the break between them.  I put up a few more boards around the windows in the dying light and it looks lovely indeed, but my moment of photographic opportunity had passed by then.

I feel I ought to tell all of you wonderful commenters out there how very much I appreciate your words and suggestions. I know I’m guilty of not replying to all of them, but rest assured that they generally leave me smiling like an idiot and bouncing around the house. Thank you

Siding and insulating around the wheel wells…

After my roof sitting jaunt, I wasn’t feeling incredibly inclined to do much of anything on Sunday that involved walking or moving, so my dad and I settled with just putting lath and redwood 2x4s on the near side of the house.

Monday I went to the hardware store and picked up some spray foam for the inside cavity around the wheel wells. I really hate the thought of that sort of stuff, but after wracking my brain for an alternative that would keep air, water and varmints out, I gave in and bought some.

It smelled of a sort of spray paint-y, headache inducing yuck, but it filled the largish space so there you go. It also stuck to my hair quite well, not really sure how it got there…

Today I cut and put up more cedar siding while my dad was at work. This meant dealing with the blasted wheel wells yet again, but this time I knew what they were going to throw at me and made my way around jigsaw cutting the boards to fit without frying my brain too much.

It’s just as well I was in no particular rush because it took me the better part of forever to get each one just so. I’m sure if any carpenter saw how many times I repeated my method of holding up a board, taking it back, cutting a hair off and so on they would likely be appalled, but it works for me and as long as it ends well.

The hardest part of today was the fitting, cutting and attaching of the long, 16 foot boards after the wheel wells. They started out as 20ft boards which I had to wrangle out of the stack, wrangle into the garage, cut to what I hoped was right, then wrangle onto the house. There was a lot of wrangling going on out here.

I came up with a nice system of propping a block of wood against one end while I worked on the other, and emerged with siding up to just under the windows and feeling rather pleased with the outcome.

I’m finding carpentry to be very similar to sewing (another craft I bash my way through) but with slightly more rigid fabric. Saws are the scissors, clamps are the pins, drivers or hammers are the needles and screws or nails the thread. Of course, if you suck at sewing, the worst case scenario doesn’t get much worse than sticking yourself in the anywhere with a small pointy object. Carpentry, not so much. Right, there went the fabric/wood tangent…

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Siding started and gable closures to the rescue…

Saturday we picked up some redwood 2×4′s for the outside corners and spent most of our time trying get the hitch end ready for siding. Much of this involved sorting out the (more confusing than it probably ought to be) task of putting up lath. Each piece of 1/4″ lath is intended to be placed over one of the 2×4 studs in the wall framing, leaving a little space between the siding and the housewrap for water to escape.

It sounds simple enough, but by the time we got up the window borders and the redwood 2×4′s on the corners, the number of studs that hadn’t just been covered amounted to all of 2. And naturally these happened to be the two surrounding the window, which become no longer useful a few feet up when the borders start.

We ended up screwing some boards on the inside wall of the house along the windows and at each side to which we eventually attached the lath. This is accomplished by a nifty little tool called a stud sensor which, in theory, beeps to inform you when a 2×4 is present under the plywood. In reality, our sensor seems to be a bit confused and/or broken and either beeps all the time or refuses to do so, and the process was extended by a good while and several bouts of cussing. It was nearly dark by the end of the lath labyrinth, but we put up a few of the cedar siding boards to improve the aesthetic.

Sunday was a glorious sort of day. Not only did the gable closures I ordered for the roof finally arrive, but they happen to cover my uneven plywood issue so brilliantly that we have dodged the feared act of house sawing, and that will do wonders for making any day glorious.

We got all but the last one on, and they look so very nice over the redwood facias. My neighbor also came over to put the shiny electric plug thingy on through the siding. Technical term, you know.

Today marks the first where I have worked entirely on my own. Last night, my dad gave me a severe lecture on the use of the big circular saw and several other implements of construction, so I set off this morning with determination and a healthy fear of power tools.

I managed to problem solve my way through the little issues that came up and got the siding on all the way to the top of the window. It’s really amazing what you can learn when it’s important you do so! That said, some parts look slightly funky up close, but that’s why you start at the end least likely to have viewers