Concrete and siding

Our neighbor Jim across the street did an awesome job resurfacing the two concrete piers that hold up the front porch. Neighbors like this are priceless!!!

Before:



After:



While he worked on the piers, I began siding the east side of the house. I decided to back prime the two bottom courses, and prime each board separately as I work up. It's so nice to hang new long courses of cedar siding.

Corner boards add so much!

Last summer I bought an infrared paint stripper "The Speedheater." It could be the best tool I own. It was expensive, but so worth it. For a change of pace, I decided to clean up one of the corner boards. (a break from the east side) I was able to strip it down to the bare wood in no time at all. Since the paint curls up and comes off in big strips, there is almost no lead paint dust or fumes. (not that high of heat) A little exterior spackle, primer, and paint...you'd swear it was new!

Window frames and tar paper

We are really getting down to business on the east side. Decided to build some new frames for the two sliding windows. Under the window wrap, there was lousy dry rotted brick molding that didn't match anything else. My neighbor Jerry designed new window frames out of 1x4s. We kept the original window sill. The beautiful cedar we used should last a long time. Almost a shame to paint them! Also continuing to tear off old siding as high as the windows, and installing new tar paper as we go. I learned that tar paper buckles in the heat of the day, and smoothes out as it gets cooler.

Down to the sheathing (east side)

We got lucky with 3 sides of the house. The siding was in remarkable shape and easy to refinish. The east side of the house?...not so much. The siding was in poor condition over here. Very brittle, split, and weathered. So we decided go down to the sheathing and hang all new siding as high as the window tops. The good news is that the siding is in much better condition further up the wall. That area can be refinished like the rest of the house. I finally got a good look at our sheathing. Solid wood tongue and groove panels. (most likely pine) You don't see that in new construction! Looks kinda pretty...like a blank canvas.

From the backyard

The back wall that connects to the deck was sided will large panels of Hardie Board. Eventually we'll side over it with the cedar siding to match the rest of the house. But for now, I painted it green. It looks pretty good, and to the neighbors that live behind us, the house almost looks done.

Southwest corner part 2

The southwest corner must have been rebuilt a few years back, so there wasn't any siding to restore. Just a junky piece of foam sheathing under the asbestos siding that was pulled off. I removed the foam sheathing, used half inch plywood for the new sheathing. I added new tar paper and also got to reuse some siding from other parts of the house.







Painted up and ready to go...complete with a new corner board.

Southwest corner

I'm coming around to the southwest corner of the house. The siding is now painted (to the tops of the windows) from the front of the house, along the west side, to this back corner. Only one top coat on this corner so far. With the exception of just two courses of siding, all of the siding pictured is original. It's looking awesome!