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 
