some men beat their wives....

Mine just makes me be a construction worker. I was so enthusiastic last week because my foot was finally out of the cast. I suddenly felt all excited again about the house. It was so great to finally be free to wear shoes, walk easily, and climb ladders and scaffolding. But I really overdid it with the hammer. My hands are killing me this week and I feel very grumpy about that.

Our house is never going to be finished. The only reason I agreed to tearing down our original house was because Doug promised that we would get professional people to work on the new part - and that meant not us. What I feared would happen did happen. Why in the world is someone like me building a house? It's ridiculous. I wanted to do the normal thing and let the insurance company restore our original house after the fire so we could move back in as quickly as possible and get on with our lives. And here we are, a couple of musicians still slaving away on our house that we haven't been able to live in for almost four years. Four Years. I can't do what I really want to do because I have to stay home and build my house. But I digress....

So we worked extremely hard last week and nearly all of the siding is up. But not quite all of it. Because not finishing anything is what it's all about around here. So now we are working on the trim - another long, drawn out, tedious process that will probably take several weeks before it is nearly done. I got really out of shape for construction work after being laid up with a broken foot for six weeks, and now I am really paying for it, both physically and mentally, after last week's burst of enthusiasm. I am not in the mood to build a house anymore. Why should I ever be in the mood to build a house? I never wanted to build a house. Why in the world am I building a house? Lots of people don't have to build their own house all by themselves. But I guess I should just suck it up - after all the pioneers used to build their own houses. Who do I think I am, anyway, complaining about this? I am a musician who needs the use of my hands. I don't want to destroy them just because of this house that I don't want to build. That would be really stupid.

Well I'll probably be feeling much more cheerful when my hands stop hurting, my foot is completely better, my back stops hurting, and we actually completely finish one of our many homebuilding tasks before moving on to the next one.

even more siding progress

So I've been kind of detached from the housebuilding scene lately. Look what has happened to the nice neat workspace that I used to maintain:

There are siding scraps everywhere, all over the entire floor. Hey Doug! Where's the trashcan? I can't walk through this room in my cast. There is no clear area of floor big enough to safely set my foot down. I know what I'll be doing when I'm back in action. But he's made really good progress on the siding all by himself, with no help whatsoever from me. Check it out:

September 24, 2008

October 3, 2008

When we were first talking about siding (about 10 years ago) the siding people convinced us to go with vinyl. I was really burned out from scraping and painting the exterior. They said "vinyl's final." I didn't like the idea of it too much, but the low maintenance was very appealing. Doug immediately went nuts about "Cedar Impressions" by Certainteed. It is quite a bit thicker than normal siding and does not look cheap like some vinyl siding does. And it most certainly is not cheap. But he had to have it and it has held up so well over the past 10 years that we decided to use the new version of it for the new version of our house. The color is called "Granite Gray." Most people say they can't tell it's vinyl. Maybe they are just being nice, but they seem to mean it. The new stuff has an even better texture.

One thing that's cool about the new siding is that it has temperature gauges built right in so that the siding can be spaced to allow for expansion and contraction based on the temperature at the time of installation. The nails go into slots, so that the side can move as it needs to without buckling.

Now that I'm back at work with somewhat limited use of my foot (no ladders for now) I'm putting up the siding in the lower sections while Doug works from the ladder. Doug has figured out a way for me to use the hammer with no risk of injury to my fingers. So I hold the nail with the needle-nosed plyers in my left hand and hammer with my right hand. Two tools at one time - aren't I something. By the way, the hairy arm shown below is not mine! I couldn't get Doug to take the picture I wanted so I photographed him doing it instead.

One thing I've noticed is that I seem to have a lot more control over the hammer when I used a backhand stroke. Isn't that weird? It seems so wrong. Maybe it's because in real life I play with a French bow and the backhand stroke of the hammer approaches the nail just like an upbow. The normal forehand hammer stroke seems more similar to the way the German bow is used. I guess we all can figure out what I'd rather be doing.

more siding progress....

The siding has gotten a little farther along. Doug's been working pretty hard although it probably doesn't look like that much progress has been made. When we are working together we get about 3 times as much work done as Doug does when he is working by himself.

I have about 3 more weeks before my broken foot comes out of its cast and I'm really looking forward to getting things back into high gear. The trimboards were kind of tricky to put up because there is a lot of shimming involved. And as you can see there is still a bit of trimwork left to do in the front. But our goal right now is to get up all of the siding and then go back and finish the trim. I'm so glad he covered those gable boxes though.

When Doug showed this blog to his friend Steve at the car show, Steve commented that in Canada where he's from they call those little windows like the ones on the first floor "piano windows". I had no idea - I guess my instincts for choosing windows for the piano room were right on target.

I got Doug to make a little house on the side of the house to enclose all of the utility ugliness. It even has the same green shingles on the roof. There will be a removable panel on the front and a hole to read the electrical meter through. So it won't look like this for too much longer.

This is our electrical box plus the 3 phase stuff that Doug had to have and the FIOS conduit. The hideousness of all this equipment was driving me nuts, especially since it's so near the front of the house.

Now that the broken bone in my foot is starting to feel a little better, I can see that I'm going to have to get out there in my cast and mow the lawn. I have no experience in nagging Doug to mow the grass since I've always just done it myself. So far, the gentle suggestions have not resulted in any grass mowing action on his part.

Siding Progress

Today Doug finished the siding on the front of the house and put the trimboards up for most of the front windows. I'm really looking forward to seeing the cornerboards now!

These two vents look surprisingly good, in spite of the fact that they are on the front of the house.

We experimented a little bit with window trim styles.

For now we are going to stick with the plain ones. After we install the cornerboards and finish jazzing them up with crown moulding, we will know whether or not the windows need something fancier. For now I kind of like the understated and simple look. I think it fits well with the style of the house.