Waitin' on wood

The big downside of using a not-so-popular-anymore siding profile is that when the lumber yard runs out, they quite literally need to go cut more trees down. So, short something like 30 boards, we are a week and a half into a 2-3 week holding pattern. Looks like we may get the remainder next Weds, though, and then I get to do more priming. Hopefully the heat will break before then!

I've got a bunch of caulking and a bit of trim painting to do in the meantime, but the end of this phase is in sight! Then the fun stuff - wiring, lift install, etc....

Decisions, Decisions.

Wow, garage doors are expensive! Plan B - basic doors.... Whatcha think?

Almost....

So we're getting there. Right side, back wall, and 3/4 of the front wall siding was finished today. Unfortunately, we're starting to run short on wood. The bad news is that this means we need to buy more, and the worse news is that this means we have a bunch more priming to do. 2 Gallons worth, at least.


The builder did find a few more bundles of our shingles so they can fix the roof. He mentioned that there are 3 bundles left after these. Total. Hope we don't need many more!





We're trying to figure out garage doors now.... I think we're going to at least get these ones priced - note that this is a hacked image so we could play with garage door styles - it's NOT a real photo!

Progress

The job manager brought in a crew today to get things rolling, after he and another guy spent the better part of the last few days working out the details for installation of this siding, fixing the boxing and trimming out the windows so they work with the siding profile.

Made some good progress today, though, and the crew is coming back tomorrow to keep it rolling.

The roofer comes back Monday to pull the outer course of shingles off all three outer roof lines to get the overlap fixed - he just didn't leave enough to work with, even if we left the drip edge off. Hopefully the builder was able to source more shingles - as they've been discontinued and we barely got the ones we have here. Starting to come together, though!

Slow Dancing

Well, we're definitely at the slow part. The guys who actually have to make the stuff all the other crews did look good. They're starting the boxing and siding now, and it hasn't been without it's challenges.

First, the framers put full size rafter tails all the way out to the eves. That would have been fine, if we weren't trying to match the eves on the house. So, now the carpenters have to cut back each rafter tail and all the fly rafters, the hard way.

Then, we realized that the roofers, who were also the framers, didn't leave enough shingle overlap on the sides to accommodate the trim boards and drip edging. Oops. Short of some major changes that might do more hard than good, not a lot we can do on this one. Not a huge deal as drip edging basically isn't used on the sides here anyway, but it's on the house and that's what it was supposed to match. They're going to fab up some custom "L" shaped drip edging without the T-profile so it doesn't require any extra shingle overlap, but will have a mostly similar look.

And then there's that Dustin guy with his nit-picky requests.... Since we're using a moderately expensive solid wood siding, I'm having the guys seal the cut board ends that will be exposed to weather, bevel cut any joints to shed water, and space the siding boards a bit to allow moisture expansion (all of this is per installation specs, by the way, but probably wouldn't have been done had I not kept on them). But the less than perfectly straight boards are posing some unexpected challenges, and after a little over 2 days we almost have one side of the garage done.

I don't want to be too hard on the guys though - they really do want to do it in a way I'll be happy with it, and that's one of the things I knew I could rely on this builder to do for me. And, the reality is that it's starting to look pretty good. This part of the project is easily going to push into next week, but there's really not much more to do after that point.

We meet with the Garage Door Guy tomorrow - I have no idea what sort of doors we're going to put on this thing!

Oh, and we've decided to change colors up too. Since we went with a Vinyl window in a Taupe-ish Clay-e, Biscuit-like sort of color, we think we're going to do a Medium to Darkish Grey-Green color over the garage and house (twice as dark as the primer tints on the siding and trim on the second picture - those are intentionally lighter). We'll then paint the existing trimwork to match these new windows, as well. We think. Maybe. We've got a week or four to figure that part out, since we only have to have primer on for the final inspections.

9 Gallons. Wishful thinking. We ended up using over 17 gallons to seal this rough-sawn wood. Had I known that going in I probably would have punted and just planned to surface spray the whole thing, but at least the top coat should go on easier now. And of course, I opted for high quality Benjamin Moore primer (and we quite literally nearly bought the Triangle area out of the stuff), so we now added a significant line item to the budget list.

Big Kudos to Malia and her dad for helping me out with this all weekend. We put in 8ish hours Saturday (though that should have taken us 3 - we were trying to brush everything in and it was taking us forever), 6ish hours Sunday, and something closer to 13 hours today. Ready to go back to work so I can rest a little! :-)

Paint Party

The framers finished up yesterday, and the siding/boxing/trimout crew comes in on Monday to finish the weather sealing. My "particular" side (AR, as Malia would say) came out when it became clear the framers weren't concerned with installing the Tyvek and flashing to manufacturer specs. Joseph agreed with me completely, and the finish guys are now lined up to take care of it.

We picked up 9 gallons of primer today - we have somewhere around 3000-4000 square feet of cedar and cypress siding surface to prime. We're about 6-7 hours, and 2 gallons, in now. What are YOUR plans for the holiday weekend?!

The Devil's in the Details....

Hey, look, it's not quite so bus-terminal-ish! They got most of the remaining OSB installed today, and window openings were framed -- a few of them twice. Got to looking out the door and noticed that my wider-than-tall window opening was framed out taller-than-wide. Turns out they missed that these are slider windows, not double-hungs. OOPS. At least we caught it early. Lost an hour or so on that one.

Shingles are going up too, and I'm happy that the ones on the front seem to match the house better - on the back they just look a tad darker - probably just a combination of them being wet, needing a few good rains and hot days to get washed off, etc...

Here's a shot of the inside. It'll shrink a little when the platform going out the back door is built and stairs are done (which go up from the back left corner toward the front).







And finally, one of the upstairs (taken from ~2' off the ground so not a good angle). Those knee walls are somewhere close to 5' I think. I think code will require I add some sort of rail to that 2' step up once I do finish that area out, but I'd still keep it an open plan. The storage areas outside the knee walls are pleasantly sizable, as well - not huge, mind you, but big enough to stack rubbermaids full of car stuff :-)