It’s been much too long! I’m letting the time between my updates on our build stretch and stretch some more. But, life is such a full thing with so many experiences and to-dos and building tasks and lovely moments and TAXES (ugh, ugh, ugh) to vie for our minutes. The taxes have been a big one this past month – it’s that time of year, eh. I don’t mind the paying of taxes, but the process of doing so is so freakin’ complicated. And, if you haven’t noticed from this tiny house build, Eli and I just can’t help our do-it-yourself tendencies. So, we do our taxes by ourselves and “by hand”, i.e. we read the instructions ourselves and fill the forms in manually. Despite Eli developing his own amazing spreadsheet for this process over the years, after the recent tax overhaul and some more complicated finances for us the past few years, we think we may test out TurboTax next year. We’ve heard good things…
But, focus! On to more enticing things. Another big reason I’ve been unable to find the time to update this blog is that we’ve also been moving along on the tiny house build. Much to update! So, let’s dive right back in. We’ve continued to work on the exterior of the house to work toward it being fully sealed up from the elements. So, our next step was the siding and window trim. Which really meant the next step was staining that cedar siding and trim. Staining and staining and staining… and staining some more (we’re still not actually finished with the siding staining…). And, it’s a tiny house. Though, we are also only a tiny crew of two…
As I mentioned before, we’re using cedar wood for our siding and trim. After some researching of sealants and protectors for cedar in exterior situations, we decided to use Ready Seal to stain our cedar siding and trim. We went with their lightest pigmentation, which was called “light oak”. Ready Seal is quite easy to worth with, and many online reviewers claimed it has good protection and longevity, but it sure does make your treated wood quite oily as you work with the stained pieces. Every tool we’ve used in preparing and installing the trim and siding is now well lubricated…
We’d apply a first coat of the stain, let it soak in for at least a few hours (but most often a day or two), then apply the second coat and let it soak in for a day or two before installing on the house. Then, the installation began. We started with the trim at the corners of the house, nice and simple. It took us a bit of back and forth to decide which side of the siding/trim – rough or smooth cut – we wanted facing out. But, we settled on the more rustic look of the rough side, which also hid any marring of the wood that occurred during milling and transport, which would have required us to do some extensive sanding to remove.
Next up, trim around the windows!