A New House Coat

Do people still wear housecoats?

Don't worry this post isn't really about housecoats...it is about our house getting a new "coat"!

We have taken on the project of re-siding our house.  Originally it had a mixture of clapboard siding and shingles.  The shingles were worn and we lost a few in wind storms so we decided to replace all the shingles with clapboard siding.

In this picture you can see the different materials by the paint color.  All of the red is shingles.  The yellow is the existing clapboard.

This picture also shows you the wonderful angles we get to work with.  We don't have very many straight walls...and those that are meant to be actually aren't either!  Ahhh the joys of an old home!!

One of our fears was that we had no idea what we would find under the shingles, especially since it's such an old home!  We were very pleased to find dry solid wood!

The first section we did was the downstairs "bump-out."  We decided this was a good place to start since we could stand on the ground and reach everything!  No need to start out 10 feet above the ground! 

Once the old stuff was removed we had to start layering it back up!  First layer is tar paper, which easily gets stapled up!  

We didn't staple the bottom of the tar paper though since we needed to attach flashing.  

The combination of tar paper and flashing are like a rain coat for the house.  

Once those were all set the pretty layer finally went up! 

We had purchased primed wood so it looks painted in this picture, but it's not!  

We're going to complete all the siding, then do the painting!  

Next spot is the back of the house, then onto the 2nd floor...that's when I'll be very nervous! 

Sanka is not a fan of this project, she doesn't like all the power tools!  This picture makes me laugh so I just had to share it!  She was looking at me like "this project is really getting on my nerves!"