The Siding Project

Kevin and I have been re-siding our house.  It's been an adventure.  In exhausting adventure.  A real work out.  A slow process.  Here's some "Before" pictures.  This first one is WAY before.  Because all that bare dirt?  It's now grass!  And the three windows at the top?  They were replaced by a bay window.  Gosh...I really need to take some updated pictures of our place!

 The "old new door" has been replaced.

The garage doors are staying. Because they were a project from a few years ago.  Still work beautifully.  But that siding?  It's all gone.

 Right now, the house looks like this!

Right now, the North side is the only side with intact siding.  (it was probably the easiest side to do!)

Kev and I have debated for over a year about what kind of siding we wanted.  I really wanted to put up siding that looks like logs.  He vetoed it simply because of the maintenance it requires.  We discussed the merits of vinyl, or cement fiber board.  We discussed if we wanted to stay with the current look of our house, or change it.  We discussed hiring the job out, or doing it ourselves.  Anything you can discuss about siding, we did.

Finally, this year, we decided we couldn't put off the decision forever.  So, we bit the bullet and decided to go with fiber cement board siding.  Why?  Well, a big factor was it's fire resistance.  We live in the country, surrounded by pasture and wheat fields.  Prairie fires move fast.  Cement board is fire resistant.  It is also relatively cheap and very durable.  

We picked the width we thought we liked and bought it.  But there was one issue that stalled us.  We felt like the east side (the walk out basement side) needed something...more.  It was such a huge span of space that we felt it looked...bland.  So we then debated whether to go with a stone facade, or something else.  Whether to go with stone panels, or individual stone blocks or faux stone.  We priced it, and gave up, finding it would cost as much as the actual siding.

But then we walked through our favorite store, Menards, and found a siding display that used stone.  Paving stones.  What a novel idea!  We priced it, and discovered it was MUCH more affordable.  So that's what we did.  We put the stone (above) on the walls stopping three feet above the ground.  It took a while--a long while--to install, but we love it!   (and yes, that's a new front door!)

We intended to start and finish the project over the labor day weekend. Oh, we were so naive.  We had help that first weekend.  But we got to the point you see here.  We discovered the old cedar siding was brittle and just shattered and splintered as we pulled it down, taking forever.  

Our house had never been wrapped, so we wrapped it for a better weather barrier (and to hopefully stop the breeze that blows under my bathroom cabinet.)  After our help went home, Kev's only help was me.

He and I have spent every weekend this month working on the house.  (Well, except one weekend, when he had to work at the hospital.) Yesterday, we finished the West and the South sides.  All we have left is the East side, above the basement level.  It's a side I'm not looking forward to doing.  I can do ladders, I just don't like to!  Hopefully, our help can come back next week and help finish this final side of the house.

So, how good of help am I?  Well, I've gotten better with the nail gun!  Lifting and holding the siding isn't an issue, but carrying 3 to 4 pieces very far very often gets tiring.  And I have this hitch in my hip that really has objected to the activity.  Today, I hurt! I can say, with complete confidence, that I don't ever want to earn my living by installing siding...all the measuring and math to figure where to start each course on each side is frustrating. We've stopped working every night exhausted.  Kev asked if it was because we're getting old, or because it's just simply hard work.  I voted for the hard work.  

But, we're getting it done.  It will look nice (once I pick out a paint color and paint it all.)  It should make our house more energy efficient.  I just hope we finish before the snow flies.