Exterior Painting

For a long time, I had three colors I was considering for the exterior of the house--medium gray, sage green, and medium taupe.  When I was driving around town I found a house similar to the style we're building (Cape Cod-ish) with an exterior color that I really liked.  I took a few pictures to show Gerry then we drove back to the house so he could see it in person.  We agreed it was a good color so I wrote the homeowners a note asking if they would share the brand and color of their house paint.  They called me!  I guess it's kind of a blue-green shade...more green than blue...and it looks different in different lighting throughout the day.  I painted 5 areas on walls facing different directions so I could see how it looked.  After a couple months (and Tech Trek duties), I finally had time to paint.

I started painting with flat paint and depending upon the lighting, it sometimes looked more blue-gray than green.  I also didn't really like the flat finish--it would be hard to clean and it was "flat"...duh...no dimension.  I didn't recall my inspiration house looking that way so I went back to check it out again.  That house's color looked much better than mine and it seemed to have a sheen that the flat paint did not have so I decided to try a satin finish.

 

Painting siding is a LOT of work!  All the white trim has to be cut in for every coat of paint.  I'm doing a minimum of three coats--one flat and 2 satin--on most of the walls and a fourth coat on the south and west facing walls that are exposed to the direct sun.

This is the east side of the shop. I started on the shop so I would get my "lessons learned" there instead of on the house.  

In this section, I cut in the edges as well as the bottom edge of each row before I painted the siding.

 

The shingles are also a hassle to paint.  I have to cut in the white trim, paint in between the shingles so the yellow primer of the board underneath does not show, and then paint the bottom edges.  Once that's all done. I paint the shingles themselves.  Repeat at least twice!

 

 Here's the bottom half of the wall and the shingles all painted!

Raymond helped me paint the sides of the house.  I cut in around the trim and he painted the "field."  This is the west side of the house:

 






















Gerry's brother, Butch, and his wife Liz visited for a few days so we had a dinner party in the shop 

Exterior Siding On The Shop

The exterior paper was hung just in time before the rain started.  It can withstand the weather for 6 months.

During the summer, I took several vacation days to hang siding on the shop and the house.
I must say, I'm pretty good at hanging exterior siding.  There are a couple great tools that make it pretty fool proof once you learn how to use them.  We're using Hardi Board, which is a cement product, and it already has a harvest yellow primer.


The power shear is a must-have.  It has three blades--the center blade has the cutting action.  It zips through the cement as if it were paper and there is very little dust.  It removes about 1/8" of material which allows for the clearance needed between the sides of the board and the trim.  Measure twice...sometimes three times, the cut!

Start the installation at the bottom of the wall and work your way across the wall then up, making sure each board is level and aligned with the rest of the row.  The two Gator Clips slide under a board and are adjustable; all I had to do was lay the next board right on top and start nailing. This made it easy for me to hang the 12' boards by myself.

Fred was always a willing helper when it came to holding down the boards.

The east side of shop with sliding door:

 

The front of the shop:

 

Every seam had to be caulked to prevent water from getting behind the boards.  Definitely not my favorite thing to do!

This is the back of the shop.  The bottom half is now completely except for the shingles. I still have to do the siding around the eyebrow windows on the upper area.

Then I started hanging the shingles on the front of the shop under the two windows.  I thought that was going to be the easy part, but it turned out to be a hassle.  The shingled area is 5' wide and the shingles come in 4' lengths, but only two different patterns. They were not long enough to easily stagger the patterns and seams so I had to lay it out on plywood and put the pieces together like a puzzle.  We may switch to individual shingles for the house.  It will take longer to nail them up, but it will be easier to mix up the sizes to avoid overlapping seams.
 

 

The west side of the shop has two windows and a door on the bottom half, and a round window in the center of the top half.

 

We still have to put siding on the shop's dormer windows, but I don't want to work on the roof  and I certainly don't want Gerry up there.  It's pretty steep on the front side, and too close to the edge for comfort.  We may need to get different scaffolding to do the job.

 

 

Kitchen Window and Pocket Doors

There's lots to be done before the insulation and drywall can be installed.

The kitchen wall facing the great room has a window that will open to so Gerry can look into the backyard or watch the TV while doing dishes.

Gerry has finished the custom opening to include a gentle arch over the window.

 

He built the custom window frames and installed them on sliding tracks.  Each side of the window will slide back into the wall like a pocket door. 

The windows will be leaded glass but we haven't decided on what type of design to use. I think we'll know better once the kitchen cabinets and counter tops are installed.  No hurry, Gerry plans to build the windows himself, but he has many other projects to do first.

I requested 4 pockets doors: between the kitchen and dining room; the entry to the laundry room; the door on the master toilet room; and my closet.  These are all areas where a regular swinging door would take up valuable floor or wall space when open.

We bought kits to construct the door frames and pockets.

 

Even though the new house will be bigger, it doesn't seem to have as much wall space for hanging art work, etc.  I asked Gerry to fill in the spaces between the pocket door frames so we could use nails in those areas and not worry about breaking through the drywall and into the pocket doors.  It was easy to do and the door frame walls are new very sturdy.

Kitchen to dining room pocket door before and after:

 

Master Bathroom Mockup

I asked Gerry to mock-up the master bath so I could see the cabinets in the space.  It will be nice to have double sinks and our own drawers and medicine cabinets.

 

He built the platform for the spa tub.   I can't wait to use it!

 

The large window over the spa tub will eventually have a leaded glass window. We filled in the space between the studs on the left side wall, between the master bedroom and the spa tub, for stability and sound proofing.

The shower floor has been started.  Gerry's not going to hot mop it; he plans to use a new waterproofing product call the Schluter-Kerdi Shower System

Kitchen Mock-up

It's been many months since Gerry's accident.  You've probably noticed I haven't been updating this house remodel blog; but, I've been taking pictures along the way.  Now I'll attempt to piece them together so they make sense.

Gerry installed cardboard mock-ups of the kitchen cabinets and island so I could get a better feel for the layout, sizes, and space.

We hung upside down plastic coffee jars (red caps) to represent the placement of the pendant lights over the peninsulas.

 

 

 
This is the wall where the oven and pantry will be installed.

The wall at the back of this picture is the west side exterior wall.

 These two walls will become the peninsulas that will the separate the kitchen from the hallway.

MIA since April 4, 2012 - Gerry Trims the Patio Tree

Gerry decided to trim the backyard patio tree to clear out the branches broken by the strong winds so they didn't fall on me or Fred.  Notice all the junk piled up around the tree truck for storage--bricks, rocks, scaffolding, a drill press, etc.

 

He's trimmed this tree since we moved into the house over 20 years ago.  He just gets right up in it.  Remember this photo from 2010 when he re-routed the cables from the back of the house to the trailer when we first started the remodel.

There are narrow paths on the three sides of the tree so we can get around it when necessary.

 Unfortunately, on April 4th, the branch he was standing on broke.  He fell vertically legs/feet onto this east-side path, narrowly missing the stuff you see in the picture:

He had a radical, compound dislocation of his right foot.  (When he looked at his foot, he thought he had "lost" it and so did one of the paramedics.) Luckily, he did not hit his head and he had his cell phone with him (I was at work), so he was able to call 911 himself.  He was taken to the Harbor UCLA Medical Center trauma center for surgery.  This was taken 8-9 hours later after surgery, in the recovery room.  He was in the hospital for 4 days.  The doctor was most concerned about infection in the bone because it had been exposed to the dirt.  (That's his good foot in the picture!)

 The doctors were surprised he could move his toes right away.  he had this soft wrap while he was in the hospital.   When they sent him home, they put on a regular plaster cast.

He could not put any weight on the foot/cast since there were pins protruding from his heel which had completely dislocated 180-degrees from his leg.  Surprisingly, he broke no bones!  He had to use a walker to move around.  They did not want him to use crutches for fear he might fall or slip...especially with all the construction paths around the yard. 

I set up an air mattress in the shop.  The trailer was too small, with steps, for him to safely move about.  Fortunately, the shop already had a TV and toilet hooked up, and he could get a wireless connection for his laptop.  Fred was very happy to have Gerry home.

He had to stay off that foot for 11 weeks so I bought a wheel chair.  Fred liked going for rides, too.

After several weeks, Gerry started to move around more and more.  He made a "scooter" so he could manuever around the house with the bad foot up on the scooter pad.

He went in for a follow-up visits with the surgeon every week for the first 6 weeks.  They were very concerned about infection since the bone torn through the skin. This is his foot on one of those days when they removed the cast and the 4 pins were still in his foot.

  

After 11 weeks, the pins were removed (with a cordless drill and pliers!) and he was given a walking boot.  He still uses the boot because he can't risk twisting his foot/ankle while he working around the house.  He can use a slipper for short walks in the shop but he has to be careful since he has no feeling on the bottom or right side of that foot.  The surgeon said it could take a year before that nerve heals.