Thursday, July 25, 2019

Close to Finishing

There is finishing touches on a long project like this one, and then there is finishing the project. Two very different things. I'm getting into some of the finishing touches and eventually, probably, someday, will finish the project.

almost there

Done!


So happy this cedar siding is finished!!
I finished the cedar. Keeping those 5.5" courses going all the way to the top, 10 courses of cedar to cover the whole span. This was not a particularly difficult part of the project, but cutting the angles did require some patience and practice. Once the measurement was taken it was pretty straightforward.

I wrote earlier about falling off of the roof. My knee is healing slowly, but I still can't run for another week or two. but I did get some better pictures of where I fell.

Repaired the gutter where I tried to hang on

Could have landed on this large pile of debris with tons of nails

It's a small piece of roof where I fell

my new fashion accessory
Now we're down to the last few punchlist tasks
The bird is gone! The last piece of beadboard is finally installed and the ceiling is done

made an attic access portal - required by code

Starting to install the cove molding!

more cove molding


the cove molding adds a nice touch


Sprayed on the primer and got a lot of it on myself!

that's quality primer

went with a blue ceiling paint


almost time to relax and enjoy it!

now that looks promising
The birds that setup a nest in my beam finally got old enough to fly away, so I was able to install the last piece of beadboard in the ceiling. Then I had already made some cove molding so I got to install that all around the beadboard. That gave a very finished look to the whole porch. I pulled out the paint sprayer again to spray the primer on, but the blue paint that my kid picked out was too thick to run through the sprayer. After the blue paint was done, I installed the ceiling fans because it was totally hot.

The last punch list items left then, are just painting the molding & trim, touch up the paint on the walls, and give another coat of paint on the floor. then it is done.

Wednesday, July 3, 2019

Gutters and more cedar and more ceiling

Fun fact - I've never installed gutters before. I had to go on the youtube and figure out how it's done from some metal working guys. Once I think I had the technique figured out I went and watched more videos. Then I bought the materials. Let's give this a shot.

Gutters come in 10' lengths, I had 2 sides, one 10' and one 13'. I had to get 3 pieces of gutter, 2 bags of seamers, a tube of sealant, 2 downspout sections, 2 left side ends and 2 right side ends with special white rivets to attach everything. Also got some screws to attach it to the subfascia and some gutter guards.

I started with a total measurement that I wanted the side gutter to be, then started with the end of the downspout tube. Rivet the ends on, rivet the seamers together, I had to cut the 10' section to allow the right finished size, then rivet the other end on. Glue the whole thing up with the sealant, then it became a struggle to install. I had to drill holes in both sides of the gutter for the screws, and kind of leave those in with a level laying flat inside to get the right pitch - supposed to be a half inch of slope per 10' of gutter.

that's how it's done!!


We went with a rain chain instead of a downspout for aesthetics. It looks great by itself, but will be a real feature that ties the landscaping to the house when everything is said and done.
The left side before I got the rain chain installed
So now I know that I can hang gutters, even though I really don't want to do that again haha

More cedar


Now the other rain chain is up

Got another ceiling panel up. you can really see how not-square those ceiling joists are now!

More cedar

More Ceiling

More celing - I added the cutout for the attic access as required by building code


guess what? more cedar
So now my biggest obstacle is waiting on the stupid birds to grow enough to leave the nest. Google says house wrens usually fly away after about 3 weeks, so I've got some time to finish the cedar.