Sunday, July 12, 2009

Is it just me...

...or are rabbits getting bigger these days?  

This is what greeted us after a few panicked minutes of not being able to find Arlo anywhere in the yard yesterday. Finally he poked his head out from behind the broccoli leaves. I think he was a little perturbed that we took pictures and laughed at him before helping him out.

Anyway, on to the house.  We are officially done scraping paint!  And it only took about two months!  We are now onto repairs and cleaning.  The repairs actually are going pretty fast. Here's a nifty one to hide the fact that the facia slipped down slightly (look up at the peak of the roof): 
I also filled all of the nail holes, which added up to quite a few with both the old siding and the tar paper behind it nailed in.  Sorry there are no riveting pictures of filled nail holes. We filled nail holes and repaired damage (of which there was surprisingly little) with this: 

It's pretty smelly stuff (I actually donned the respirator even though it was supposed to be my first day without it), but it worked really well. It's actually an epoxy more than a wood filler.  If you're going to use it, do it when it's shady--it cured too quickly if the sun hit it.  

We're also repairing a piece of the skirting.  It had bowed out, and the siding had come in slightly to make a weird gap.  We used shim to bring a couple of clapboard pieces out slightly, and then took out shims that were behind the skirting (who knows why they were there in the first place).  Here is the spot where the board is removed.  

And here is all of the nasties living behind the board...eeew! That's dust, among other things.

We also had to remove one damaged clapboard as part of the fix on this corner.  I believe these actually aren't clapboard at all, but beveled siding. Anyone know anything more about this? Or where we can get a replacement?  We are planning to take the broken one down to Siwek's Lumber and have a new one milled, though I think this is going to be expensive. Here's the profile.
Another, and perhaps the most involved project (especially since Kevin's parents have our miter saw for the weekend) was replacing the broken shakes.  Here you can see the dog eared edge pieces.  
This is about how we left the house after the weekend, although as a final project, Kevin cleaned it, so it looks much fresher. This picture was taken yesterday.
We would like to have at least a coat of primer on by the end of next weekend.  How exciting!

6 comments:

Jennifer said...

Wow! Your house looks so ready for its paint! That is a fabulous prep job.

Funny dog... I bet brocolli was way less exciting than he though it would be!

Old House Lover said...

My understanding for the shims behind the skirting is to allow air circulation to keep the skirt and the sill dry. Without the shims moisture can get back there and cause rot.

Anonymous said...

Okay, two things:

1) The dog pic is absolutely adorable. If I weren't so partial to my pooch, I'd say that was the cutest dog ever!

2) The house is looking SO GOOD!! I'm thrilled for you, especially since I'm suffering the same plight here. Good for you for tackling this yourselves...I just didn't have the stamina to tackle it on my own (the scrapers begin on Tues!). Kudos!

bungled said...

Jennifer,

Thanks! It better last a long time, because after the next three sides, I never want to do this again!

Old House Lover,

I think you are right. Kevin gave it some thought and came to the same conclusion. When he put the board back on he put thinner shims back there. Thanks!

Bungalow Bliss,

Yeah, we're pretty fond of him. You can hire scrapers?! Are you going to paint yourself? Painting has been the easiest so far.

To all,

Thanks for commenting. It's so exciting to get "mail!"

Anonymous said...

The scrapers came with the paint crew--and honestly, after removing the siding (and surviving two ladder falls), I was ready to hand the job over to the pros. The prep work took by far the longest amount of time...the painters finished today (!!!!), so a post is coming soon--just no energy left for pics after setting everything back up!

bungled said...

It's done already?! We should really think of hiring something out one of these days. Wow. I can't wait to see it.