With the shingles finished and all the utility inlets/outlets squared away, it’s now full out siding on the lower half of the house.  We can’t wait to have the exterior fully completed.  It will feel like a significant landmark, for sure.

But first, more staining!  The staining of the siding and shingles has seemed never-ending…

But now, finally, let the lap siding installation begin!  If you remember, we had started putting the lap siding on the short back wall while in the midst of putting on the shingles.  Although we didn’t quite finish that wall yet, we decided to start in on the front long wall.  With the placement of the door, our 16-foot siding boards were long enough for a single board to span the length from the back of the house to the door.  This meant installation was a bit simpler for this side.  We did have to do some notching of the boards to accommodate the detail around the door trim, the exterior light trim, and the windows.  The board that ran along the top or bottom of each window was the hardest as the notching was in the middle of the board, so had to be placed perfectly and required a tricky cut with the table saw, and it left a narrow piece of the board susceptible to breaking as we carried the board to the house and slipped it into place.

We decided to work down from the top of the wall as we put on the boards since we’re using lap siding and this was possible and we wanted a full board at the top where the siding meets the horizontal trim piece (the final siding board at the bottom of the wall will be a slimmer piece trimmed to size).

Siding on the front long wall begins

Half way done the front long wall

As we got near the bottom, the wheel well loomed.  Cutting the siding to fit around the wheel well – well, that was going to be a task.

Eli, ever a flow of ideas and with his love of jigs and patterns, took some of our scrap plywood and made a guide of the wheel well for use as a stencil of sorts for doing the cuts on the siding boards.  What a boon!  It made those cuts so much simpler and cleaner.

We’re stoked with how clean and tight the look is on the house!  Holy hell, one side actually looks like a house!

First wall fully completed!