First Day of siding and more.....

Saturday (10/12/13) was the BIG DAY.  We finally started on installing siding.

Since we bought this house on July 10th, Mark has been saying "if it helps us get the siding installed then it is a priority.  If not, it can wait."

With the exception of the initial tear out on days 1-3 or so, everything else we have been doing has been necessary to prepare the outside of the house for siding installation - window replacement, house wrap (tyvek) installation, fireplace enclosure building, deck framing (it is so much better to work on plywood on the deck than it is on a board on the ladder jacks), chimney removal and trim installation.

Mark was actually pretty nervous about how things would go today.  He arranged for his contractor buddy, Ray Weidner, to come help us get started.  Ray has sided many houses and knows a lot of the tricks of the trade.  It is so important to get started accurately otherwise you'll find yourself pulling it all down and starting over.  Mark was at Comet at 9am to get everything all set up.  I enjoyed a nice walk with Dixie and gave Mark some time all to himself.  Trust me.... he needed it.  He was a bit on edge.  I arrived about 10am and so did our friend, Mary Shimp, who was visiting us from Washington DC.  Mary (or Auntie Mary as Matt and Em called her when they were little) and I worked together at Oracle back in 1987.  Mary's claim to fame (at least for me) is that she was the ONLY person to visit me in the hospital when Emily was born!  Mary wanted to come see the house and help us with it before it got cold so we were blessed with her visit this weekend (see her picture later on in this post!)

After a delay due to a tool issue (didn't have the right mail gun) Ray joined us and immediately began answering our numerous questions about all the challenges with siding - how do we do this corner that is so close to the fireplace box?  what size trim is used on the corners?  where do we start? how do we make sure we start with a straight row (especially when nothing seems to be straight on this house)? and so on.  We decided to start on the back of the garage and work our way around the back of the house to the west side and then to the front.  This strategy allows us to become expert siding hangers before we get to the front where "everyone" will see our work.  The problem with this strategy is that the area to be sided on the back of the garage starts about 4 and a half feet off the ground so pretty rapidly we were up on ladders.  My brother, Tim, came to help us also so it went pretty quickly.

First couple of rows done with Ray's help

Making progress - Mark cut, Tim and I installed.... with Bennett as our special helper

Bennett with Uncle Mark  - he was promising that he wouldn't climb higher on the ladder!

Finishing up Day 1 of siding.  We worked as high as we could with the 10 foot ladder then got a couple rows going on the kitchen wall

It was super slow getting going but once we got into the grove of measuring, cutting, running, and nailing, it started to go faster.  We put the siding up in a repeating 4 row pattern.  Soon we got used to the length of the cuts and how to nail them efficiently.  Of course, once we got into the groove of things, it started getting dark and we had to stop for the day.

Sunday (10/13/13) we were back at it.  This time it was just Mark, Mary and I.  We focused our attention on the kitchen wall all day.  Mark cut (and sometime came up the ladder to help us nail) while Mary and I installed pieces of Hardy board being sure to overlap the existing course by an inch and a half which left a 6 inch reveal.  So precise!

Mark checking measurements

Mary using the nail gun.  She became quite the pro at it after just one day despite the crazy surface we were standing on

 While Mary and I slaved away, Mark pretended to cut boards for us but here's what he was really doing:

We didn't bring the Vikes any luck by bringing the TV outside and watching them  - sort of! 

We decided that we would have felt really, really bad (like perhaps many of you) if we had sat inside and watch the awful game for hours instead of being outside and getting some work done.

Mary and I taking a timeout for a picture

End of Day 2 

We continued on till it started getting dark and the temperature dropped!  We decided not to tackle the next course above the windows because many cuts are required to get it just right.  We were pooped and needed dinner.  Beside the Red Sox game was about to start so we went to Hightower to watch.

Monday (today) our crew got even smaller.  It was just Mark and I.  It was slow(er) but we still made more progress.  We finished two more courses above the windows in the picture above - the one with all the cuts seemed like it took us 2 hours to do - Mark may have even hurt himself thinking about it.!  Then we moved back to the garage wall and added 10 or so more rows.  We are over half way done on that wall but I am not going any higher on the ladders. Mark will either get someone else to help him or we will rent scaffolding to finish it.

THEN we moved to the back side under the deck.  This is the area I am excited to work on.  We are on the ground - in fact I was sitting on the ground to get low enough to install the first row - and we can put up full 12 foot boards so much less monkeying around with cutting.  We finished two rows before darkness made us quit.  Boy is this going to be a big job.  And I don't think we will make any progress on it tomorrow given the weather forecast - 40's and rain! Yuck.  But that's ok.  I am working at the high school, we will go to the hanger to get our warmer clothes that are all packed and we will go to HomeDepotLowesMenardsSchererBrothers to get "things" we need to make room for outside lights, outlets, water faucets and vents. Hopefully Wednesday will be dry - we don't even care if its cold - we will just dress like we used to for our kids downhill ski races.  We really don't have any where to wear that clothing anyway.

It will probably be a while before I post another update as it will be kinda like all those days of window installation. Each one like the last - "today we installed siding" so I won't bore you with a day by day.  But I will post again when we can show real progress - like the whole back is done or something like that.

Thanks everyone for being interested in our adventure!  Stop by and say "hi" if you are in the neighborhood.