2015 Siding Remodel
The house was built in 1979.
We purchased it in 1980, this picture was taken early 1981.
Ex-Gary and I had been on Cape Cod and this house was reminiscent of the sea-side homes.
2002 ~ This is still the original roof and paint. After 22 years, you can see the cedar siding is showing it's age. The stucco has never been painted.
The garage door has been replaced. We liked the design of the original garage door but when wet it was too heavy for an automatic opener.
2003 ~ The small gutters have been replaced and in the process of replacing the shake roof.
I have painted the window and door trim, the door and entry stucco. The garage fascia, trim and siding have been painted.
The trim work around the front windows is a huge improvement. I was really glad to lose that crappy "box" design below the windows.That wood was just OSB and was seriously rotting in 2003 when I painted it.
We were not happy with how the front garage shingle section looks. The installation crew miscalculated the amount of material needed for the pitch and ended up leaving 64' feet of shingle sections on the pallet. That much material easily would have been enough for an additional row or two below their starting point. We also thought they should have trimmed the bottom layer straight rather than stranding the staggered edge over the lap siding.
We are now thinking of adding an arbor over the garage door, similar to the picture on the right. Stained, it would complement the wooden boardwalk.
Twelve years after repainting the 36-year old siding, it was time to replace our house's split and cracked cedar siding. Fred and I had talked about this for a few years; we had decided to replace the siding with James Hardy fiber cement Cedar-mill lap siding since finding replacement cedar siding was proving difficult. Fred wanted to do the residing project himself and had worked up preliminary figures and gotten special saw blades, but hadn't found the right time to take off work.
Our neighborhood had also deteriorated over the last decade and we had developed a sound issue with unruly neighbors living diagonally from us and rap-blasting cars that pause and slow down for the speed bump in front of our property. The boardwalk amplified and directed sounds into the entryway. Our pictures would be literally vibrating on the walls all the way to the back of the house. It became difficult to watch TV in our living room on Sundays, the day our neighbors would have friends congregate in their driveway. Our front door and entry sidelight had original single-pane glass and did little to stop the bass wavelength.
With both Fred and I past (or just reached) the 60-year old mark, our hips, knees and shoulders were a little less keen to have this project spread out for weeks or months. (There would be plenty of projects inside the house.) We decided to get a contractor to do both the siding and door. Rather than just replacing the door and sidelight, we wanted the doorway to be centered on the boardwalk and the sidelight removed for security and sound-dampening reasons. We began the order process for the door and siding at the end of November 2014, but installation didn't begin until March 16th, 2015.
End of first day....
3 PM. Fred got home just as the crew was buttoning up for the day; I believe they wanted to get in some boating on the river.
Day Two
Day Two started with delivery of the front door. Although the door crew and siding crew work for the same company, they were a bit like feral dogs circling each other. I could see why the salesman said they don't mix crews.
The siding crew had to wait for the OSB nail inspector, who was running late. They decided to tack up the house wrap, which caused quite a shouting match when the inspector arrived and he made them pull it all down.
Door went in smoothly and the siding crew finished up with house wrap and siding.
Fred wired the garage for lights in 2010, but we only had the left light installed. Nine watts light up the front of the garage.
James Hardy Fiber Cement Siding
"Engineered for performance & durability to specific climate zones, moisture & rot resistance, durable over time with baked-on color, fire protection, insusceptible to pests, weather withstanding"
House History Pictures
Siding Installation
2013 ~ The cedar siding continues to crack and split. We could not locate matching replacement siding, would need to custom order this wide siding. Time re-side completely.
2014 ~ In the original meeting with our salesman, he explained how the project would roll-out, starting with the Siding Crew power-spraying, scraping and painting the fascia boards and under eaves. Then they would remove the stucco in the entry way for the Door Crew. Although both crews work for Halls, he was clear that the different crews do not mix onsite.
On the following day, the door crew would remove existing framework to open the entry all the way, build the framework for a centered door and install the door.
Then the siding crew would return following day to remove old siding and garage stucco, put up OSB, pull and replace windows, install house wrap, trim and siding.
Building inspections would happen at various points, the work would be contingent on the inspections.
Well, that didn't happen. Day One was a total surprise.
Fred actually took time off from work to be on site. Unfortunately, a required class came up and Trimac insisted he attend at Galt that day. We figured we would have the day to remove fixtures but Fred didn't get back until 2PM. We thought day one would be an easy day as described by the salesman: painting under eaves, removal of stucco in entry. Instead, the crew immediately began pulling off siding; they had no instructions whatsoever of power cleaning and painting.
When the foreman showed up an hour after the crew, I asked him about the painting. He knew nothing about it, so we compared work orders. The foreman was missing page 2, which included the power-spraying and paint and the instructions for removal of garage wall stucco and installing siding! He had been there when we ordered with the salesman and and his boss, but somehow missed these instructions.
I began to wonder if siding material had even been ordered for the garage, since the foreman wasn't aware that the garage stucco needed to be removed. (He was a bit unhappy with that.) After a few phone calls, we found out material had been ordered. Since the siding color is baked on at the factory, it was important to have the same color lot. By now the crew had the garage sheathed in OSB and it was too late for any cleaning. We'll need to do that ourselves later.
I had removed a lot of the pictures from the walls inside the house, since I was floating walls for new texture. Holy Moly! I had to do some fast scrambling to get everything off the walls when the stucco bashing began. I had a few heavy things fly off the walls in the office, damaging furniture and the floor. I still had the blinds on the windows that were being pulled out. It was a wild scramble in a short time. They could not figure out Fred's electrical conduit for the outside outlet and began just yanking it. After all the waiting for a project date, we were NOT prepared for their Day One. Only two of the crew spoke English; every one but me spoke Russian.
When we replaced the windows in 2000, the window flange was installed over trim. Windows were set deeper into the frames, impacting the blind installation.
Day 3 They did a nice job on the siding and were excellent at caulking the seams. Fred liked the siding chopper, above. Less dust is good.
Jeld-Wen fiberglass door with clavos and grilled speakeasy.
Boardwalk took a beating and could use a new coat of stain.
The garage lights are LED and only use 8.9 watts. We got a new entry light, too.
Max and I painted the garage door on Spring Break. More homes in the neighborhood have painted garage doors. We should have gotten the fascia scraped and painted, too. There are so many trim pieces left over; we are thinking of ripping them and using them in conjunction with Hardie soffit panels under the eaves in the front and along the garage. We would have to paint them, though, instead of the baked in color.
