Shingles and Siding

Needs landscaping, doesn't it! Hopefully, we
will get to that next summer (2010).

Gate look OK?

Her is the back side. The gate is made of the
same PVC-based material as the trim on the
windows. Embedded in the top and bottom
frame members are steel plates that the
hinges screw into. I designed and

As a finishing touch, Eleanor and I built a gate
for the pathway between the house and shed.
Here Eleanor helps dig a hole for the gate post.

And here it is... our new home as it appears on May 6, 2009.
Still needs some siding above and around the garage door.
Notice the bump out? It will give us 2' of additional space for
our Hummer (don't think so!).

We painted the pipes to our gas meeter, but would
have preferred to make them disappear. When the
meeter arrives we'll paint it too.

This is what the shed looks like today (May 6).
Vince and I re-trimmed the doors, and Eleanor
and I mounted them last weekend. We'll hang
some siding on them soon.

And the north side. Now the shed matches the house.

Here is the re-shingled south side. We installed a
ridge vent to keep the inside cooler during the summer.

Completing the east side made the neighbors happy...
and us too. Our siding job, for the house at least, was
complete except for the garage area. That part had to
wait until we finished bumping out the garage door.
So, we decided to re-roof and side the shed.

In this shot Vince and I are installing some trim

around the gable end on the front (east) side.

We put the lights from the old house back up, but
raised them about a foot to accommodate a higher deck.

This is the living room french door on the south side.
We'll hang the deck on the ledger boards below.

This is the west side of the living room.
We'll install a gate so that the meter
and other utilities will be hidden.

Complete, except that we will need to add a vent for
the fireplace between the two windows on the far side.

Vincent working on the north wall.

This shot shows the rough texture of the siding.

The training wall is covered, and now it's time to get
productive. We found an experienced and very likable
siding contractor, Vincent Vanduinen, who was happy
to help us out.

Eleanor gave me the cool tool belt for valentine's day.
Thanks sweetheart!

Time for some siding! This is our "training wall" next to
the boardwalk, where we learned how to install it. We are
using Certainteed Cedar Impressions double 9" rough split
shake siding, herring bone color.

This french door opens to the kitchen. We are
planning to do a little custom trim work below
the left side of the gable in order to make it look
more like the corner on the right side.

The deck area (west side) now has rim boards on
both sides. We hope to begin building the deck
this summer.

In this pic you can see vent pipes for the furnace
and water heater, and the electric service. The
mechanical room is in the basement, just inside
this wall.

The house is ready for siding, but we decided to
delay installation until March or April when
warmer weather will make the task easier.

In this pic you can see that the old garage entry
door on the north side has been removed.

The 12" boards at the top of the gables seem
to make the house more inviting.

Our new front door has not yet been installed.

We decided to use 12" trim boards at the top
of the gables. The next few photos (above)
show the house with completed trim except for
the garage. We plan to bump out the garage
door 2' this spring. The entry door you see on
the south side of the garage was the front door
of the old house.

Another view.

Steve helps us decide whether to expand the trim
on our gables to 12".

Brian installs trim above the kitchen window.

This is not the best day to be installing a soffit.
Brian takes a blast of snow from the roof in this pic.

A close-up of the porch light and soffit.

The porch soffit is partly done in this photo.

Now, they are working on the east side.

The crew is adding a soffit on the North side today.

This photo, dated 12/16/08 , shows the north
and east windows before trim is applied.

Before installing the siding, Craig and his crew install
window and door trim, soffit and fascia material. This pic
shows trim (Restoration Millwork by Certainteed) on
the french door and dining room window.

Tyvek will protect the OSB.

The type of siding we selected (Certainteed, Cedar
Impressions) cannot be installed directly on an ICF
wall, so we skinned the outside walls with OSB.

Our new roof.

Installing Grace Ice & Water Shield

The shingles arrive. Sam Near (Eleanor's distant
cousin) is handling this job.

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Backfilling and Window Wells

Done.

Almost done.

Getting there!

A scary view from down low.

Our chute won't win any engineering awards, but it works.

The east well is deeper, so we constructed a skirt of OSB
and house wrap prior to back filling with gravel and sand.

A layer of sand covers the top, and will be
followed by about 6" of dirt.

A few sand/gravel filling cycles later, and we wrap it.
Not sure if we will leave it this way, but it seems like
it will help keep the window well dry.

We used house wrap to separate the gravel from the
surrounding sand, per the manufacturer's instructions.

Six yards of gravel will surround the wells
(3 yards each) in order to provide drainage.

Here is a view from inside.

We added 4x4s to the base of the west well to make it a little longer.

And, having just made some final adjustments to the interior
walls, Adam's heads home. He will return in the Spring to help
us with our porch and other cement work.

Adam and Pablo attached the wells to the wall. The
one in the foreground has an extension unit below it.

And now... ready for installation.

Our Bilco egress window wells, ready for assembly.

Some gravel for our window wells.

The pile slowly grows.

And now we finish back-filling that hard-to-reach corner.
This dirt conveyor, with a few on-site modifications,
does the trick, but its still a bit like trying to squirt
dirt through a garden hose. It takes all day.

We shored up the shed using steel posts removed
from the crawl space under the old house.

Back-filling is tricky in this area, since the
excavator can't get back there. We used another
method, as you'll see shortly.

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