I put the last piece of siding on my house today. I'm ecstatic! I still have caulking and painting to do as long as the weather cooperates but the bulk of the project is done and the end is in sight.
It may seem trivial but this project has taken the majority of my free (good weather) time for the past two years.
For those who don't know what I've been up to, I've been replacing all the siding on my 135 year old house. The old stuff was original believe it or not and while it had a long, useful life it was time for a new skin. Most folks would have gone with vinyl which would have been much cheaper and faster but I feel it ruins the character of an old house. I'm a former remodeling professional so I've got old house restoration in my blood. I opted for Cabot factory finished select cedar beveled siding, oil base primed all sides and one coat prefinish. I strip the old siding off, repair/replace any damaged or rotted framing, treat the framing with a lifetime preservative/termite repellent, chink up the insulation (the house has already been gutted from the inside, rewired, plumbed and insulated), housewrap with Tyvek, re-case the windows with prefinished spanish cedar and then, finally, put the siding on. All pieces of wood are sealed on all sides and all cuts are sealed before being installed with stainless steel nails. Once it's installed I do my caulking and topcoat the siding and trim with a finish coat of Cabot paint. I also have put new shutter hardware on all the windows including the old style catches at the sill. Eventually I'll put authentic wood shutters back on all the windows since the only originals left were on the front of the house. I repainted and reinstalled them. I've also power washed and painted the standing seam porch roof, installed a new 15-lite TDL door in the kitchen and power washed, scraped and primed the detached two car garage. I still need to paint that (c'mon good weather!). All told I've run about 6000 lineal feet of siding, a few hundred feet of trim and hammered between 5-6000 nails, the old fashioned way.
I'm in the business so I got excellent pricing for all the material (about $10,000). If I hired a contractor to do all that I've done it would have cost me about $30-35,000.
I smoked a Partagas Short when I nailed the last board on (what can I say, I was in the mood to "Party").
It may seem trivial but this project has taken the majority of my free (good weather) time for the past two years.
For those who don't know what I've been up to, I've been replacing all the siding on my 135 year old house. The old stuff was original believe it or not and while it had a long, useful life it was time for a new skin. Most folks would have gone with vinyl which would have been much cheaper and faster but I feel it ruins the character of an old house. I'm a former remodeling professional so I've got old house restoration in my blood. I opted for Cabot factory finished select cedar beveled siding, oil base primed all sides and one coat prefinish. I strip the old siding off, repair/replace any damaged or rotted framing, treat the framing with a lifetime preservative/termite repellent, chink up the insulation (the house has already been gutted from the inside, rewired, plumbed and insulated), housewrap with Tyvek, re-case the windows with prefinished spanish cedar and then, finally, put the siding on. All pieces of wood are sealed on all sides and all cuts are sealed before being installed with stainless steel nails. Once it's installed I do my caulking and topcoat the siding and trim with a finish coat of Cabot paint. I also have put new shutter hardware on all the windows including the old style catches at the sill. Eventually I'll put authentic wood shutters back on all the windows since the only originals left were on the front of the house. I repainted and reinstalled them. I've also power washed and painted the standing seam porch roof, installed a new 15-lite TDL door in the kitchen and power washed, scraped and primed the detached two car garage. I still need to paint that (c'mon good weather!). All told I've run about 6000 lineal feet of siding, a few hundred feet of trim and hammered between 5-6000 nails, the old fashioned way.
I'm in the business so I got excellent pricing for all the material (about $10,000). If I hired a contractor to do all that I've done it would have cost me about $30-35,000.
I smoked a Partagas Short when I nailed the last board on (what can I say, I was in the mood to "Party").
