A Siding Update

For those of you that are not familiar, we have been picking away at an “accidental DIY” addition– which includes a Family Room, Master Bedroom, Family Bathroom, and second story loft with a a powder room, bonus area and kids nursery… as I like to call it 😉 Last spring we finished the last of the cedar shingles on our addition. We stained all of them by hand (I know… sounds crazy) and I am so happy with the look of them. We tried to take last summer “off” as much as we could and just did some smaller projects… well smaller than building a house! Outside of the house we put in a fire pit and gravel surround, laid a flagstone path, built a deck on the front and finished the siding on the new mud room, I stained all the decks and we also put down a paver sidewalk up to the house. And we expanded the drive way… and built a kids fort and raised garden beds. Oh my goodness, I didn’t think the list was that long! Don’t mind us… we are just strange go getters or something. That and we really like the idea of being debt free 😉  The good news is, our kids think its totally normal!

Now my house has looked kind of like Frankenstein for the last 6 months… If any of my neighbours are reading this I apologize- but I promise it will all be worth it! This fall we decided to rip off all the old vinyl (by we I mean Matt and his dad started ripping it off one day) because we had to know for certain if the original cedar underneath the vinyl was in good enough shape to restore, or if we would need to replace it. When the first side was in decent shape, I suggested we just leave the rest of the vinyl on the house- because I honestly didn’t feel like tackling it all. But- we didn’t end up doing that. The south east side of the house was in the worst shape. Apparently there was some sort of lean to/carport thing on the side at one point. There was also a window that was closed up. Thankfully we saved every bit of siding we could from the back of the house where we added on- so we can patch it.

I was able to mostly fill holes on the one side- because the paint was in quite good shape. Of course the best side was the first side of the house we did- and we asked “Why would someone cover this up?” And then we got to removing the rest of the vinyl and we knew why. Stripping the front of the house was not my favorite job, let’s just put it that way.

As fall wore on- I realized it was going to pretty much be impossible to finish before the days turned cold, and snow set in. Sad. Matt ended up having a job take a good month of his time that was unexpected- which was great- it just meant I was a solo house painter- and that took a loooooong time. Plus, I essentially worked at nap times- and a few after bed time sessions for an hour.

I have felt kind of daunted by the house- having to see it unfinished all winter… and then I read this post by the Nester, called Remember How Far You’ve Come. It was just what I needed to hear. She said “When you feel overwhelmed with how much you have to go, start looking at how far you’ve come. Amen”

So in that spirit- and looking forward to spring- here is how far we’ve come! This is our house the day we moved in…

And here is little Frankie today….

Now you can probably most definitely understand my frankenstein reference. Or maybe it’s 2 face? Right now I am about half way done. Basically, windows take the longest- and I still have to scrape the glass. The good news is- the wayward paint comes off in about 2 minutes.

This photo is from last spring…

And here we are now… I spot a certain someone at one of his favorite look out spots…

Just imagine a pergola over the deck to the right, and cedar shakes in the gable of the front…. and then it’s basically like we’re done 😉

I do love the round little front entry now that matt put the cedar shingles on it, it’s so cute. He also changed out the trim of the door by adding a new header on top so that it is one large continuous piece. If you look at the original photo- the round facia was covered in little cut metal pieces. It just looked bad…. so Matt cut new cedar facia for that whole front bump out- and he will also put in cedar soffit that we will leave natural with a clear coat. I also have to put a light up there! The transformation gives the front of the house much more presence, which it needed. The amazing thing about the blue siding you see in the photo below is that its almost 80 years old- isn’t that crazy?! It kind of amazes me.

I mostly love the back though… since it’s done!

Our house colors always cheer me up in the winter. You might be wondering why we chose to use “shingles” more commonly referred to as shakes (my supplier explained cedar shakes are thicker and go on the roof, and cedar sidewall shingles are what we have… interesting) instead of a lap siding similar to the old house. Our siding actually has a rounded bevel, not the more common square profile you are used to seeing. This means that it is considered “custom siding” because back in the old days people used what they had access to. This means we would have had to get our siding cu$tom milled… so we decided to go all cedar- but mix the textures up a bit- and I think it has worked out really well so far 🙂 Even if there is a little surgery to be done…

Pretty soon we will call it a wrap on siding- but it’s good to remember how far we have come- little by little. Restorations are not for the faint of heart- that’s for sure.

-Miss Ash