More cut arounds on the south face

Building on the success of last week, we again started doing cut outs on the two gas meters on the south side.  That took all day.  We started at 9:00 a.m. and finally by 6:00 p.m. got to the first row of normal boards.  While Rob was fiddling with the cut outs, I went up on the ladder on the north face, filling nail holes with silicone, and cleaning out the gutters at the same time.

But the excitement of the day was the opening of the second bundle of boards!  We had 240 boards delivered--120 on each pallet.  We finished the first pallet last week, and cracked into the second bundle today. 

Which means we are reducing the boards pile, which means I will be able to park in the garage hopefully sometime before the snow comes, as the boards are blocking access into the garage.  Yay!

Ascent of West Face--Oct 12

This blog is a week late, but it's not much fun to blog without being able to load pictures, so I'm not in a rush to upload.  One day it will get fixed...

So this was the Thanksgiving Day long weekend.  Rob came up on Thursday night, and started doing installation of lights on the west face on Friday while I was at work.  Then he started moving boards up past the window.  And then....we put up tyvek, framed the peak, and a bottom triangle board, so now all the boards go up to the middle peak.  The peak will be filled in in the spring.  It looks so sharp.

And we had time to even go to the south face and do some complicated cut outs of the gas meter.  That was fiddly.  We got three rows installed.
But the highlight of the day was that we finally finished going through the first bundle of boards!  Half way there.

Then it was time on Sunday at noon to head to the lake to close up the cabin.  Gee, the chores never end!

And now the west face

So this weekend we tackled the west face--which includes cutting around the door and window.  But because the weather was wet on Saturday, we spent most of the day fiddling with the heater--getting it connected, wired, and up and running.  And aside from that slight wiring issue that caused the breaker to blow because the wrong white and black wires were crossed (!), we now have heat.  Then the sun came out so we headed outside to start the boards.

A few rows of starting boards (and we have to cut two boards on each row), we hit the window and then measured 8 boards to go from the window to the edge.  That went pretty quickly and used up a lot of boards.  Then we nailed.  Got a good rhythm going--cut them all, then move the gecko gauges, then silicon, and level, then nail.  Repeat as needed.  Then we did the other side of the window to the door.

After that, it was the little strip beside the door and edge--about 10 3/4" long.  And then the board spanning on top of the door.  Let's not forget the drip edge. And believe it or not, all the boards lined up!  It looks so sharp to see blue boards instead of tyvek.

We Reached the Summit!

This post is about last weekend (Sept 27).  We reached the summit of the north face!  It took all weekend but at 7:50 p.m. on Sunday night, we airnailed the last board.  Boy, does its get dark at 6:30, so we were nailing in the dark but the street lights sure helped.

We measured, cut, levelled, and nailed.  And made a huge dent in the pile of boards in the garage.  It took three boards per row, and we had 22 rows--so 66 boards up on the wall.

We crested the fence at 11:35 a.m. on Saturday morning.  And kept going.  Had to add the white board at the top, and then cut the blue board to fit it, but we made it.

Ascent of the North Face

(Note:  Still not able to do photos--too bad, cause this one's a really good one)


This weekend was the weekend to actually start installing hardie board siding.  We decided to do the north side of the garage first, as that is a plain rectangle with no fancy cutting in around windows or doors or peaks.  I called it the north face, and when one climbs mountains (which this feels like), you do an ascent, hence our expedition this weekend is the ascent of the north face!

On any expedition, you need to research your plan, which involved Rob watching numerous videos on siding and how to use the gecko gauges.

We then installed the drip edges, marked stud lines, snapped chalk lines vertical and horizontal, and assembled the numerous cutting saws for edging strips. and that was just on Saturday. Oh and cut out 240 black squares from tar paper to install inbetween the joints for moisture barriers.

So Sunday was the day of the ascent. our first board when int at 11:30 and our last board at 7:30.  A few air nailer issues with too much pressure and then not enough. And we had to do two rows of boards to get established before we could break out the gecko gauges.  So it involved me holding boards tying to get them level.  Once we had enough for the gekkos to hang onto, they worked like a charm!

We would carry, measure, cut (with me holding the shop vac to suck up any noxious dust while we both work face masks), then siliconing the ends, levelling, and finally nailing.  Oh, and cutting out two boards to install future plug in receptacles.

Six rows and 18 boards later, we had a start.  But Rob tells me that that is only 7% of the total boards used so far.  Not a major ascent, but a start.

This Could Save Your Marriage

(Note: The computer glitch has yet to be figured out, so not able to post photos yet.  Original post date should have been September 18, 2014)

So in advance of installing the hardie boards, Rob was chatting with the guy from Rona and he suggested Rob get some "special clips" that will hold the board in place while he nails it.  You see, the boards are 12 feet long and heavy, and I will be on the other end, trying to hold it, and keep it level.  You know where this is heading....I will be wilting and drooping while we try and position it, which leads to perhaps heated words on both sides...thus the Rona guy, when he found out it was Rob and me doing it, suggested we get these clips, so we don't kill each other. 

He ordered them on Saturday and I picked them up today.  At first, the guys at the lumber place didn't know what I was talking about, but the guy Rob talked to, said yes, it's called Gekko Gauge.  I said it would save our marriage...the guy agreed...he said only hanging wallpaper with your spouse was the worst thing on the planet, followed by doing siding together.

So here is our life saver.  And another bonus...Rob can sell it on Kijji when we are done, as the lumber place said they are always getting calls for used ones (the Gekko Gauge is slightly pricey, but cheaper than marriage counselling!)

That's Hardie Board, not Hardy Boys

(Note: I'm not able to post pictures due to a computer glitch, so use your imagination for now!  The original post date should have been September 11, 2014)

I know, I keep getting them confused, but the siding we ordered is called hardie board and it is made of concrete but looks like wood.  So not the boys' mystery stories.  Now that we have that cleared up, we have good news:  the boards are here!

Rona called and I met the delivery guy Al at the house. He picked the boards up with his forklift and dropped them in the garage. 

His forklift was too tall to fit in the garage, so the boards could only go in sideways...which means, we are parking on the street until we get those puppies up. I tried to sweet-talk Al into helping put up the boards, but he said he had his own honey-do list from his wife!

In anticipation of the boards going on the garage, we finished up the last of the trim boards and blue waterproofing stuff.

And...Jason our gas fitter came by and hooked up Mr. Heater in the garage, so we can have heat in the winter.

So exciting...So this weekend we start putting up the hardie boards...wow...that was a long time coming. And we probably won't have any free time to read the Hardy Boys!