happy weekend: spring has sprung

happy friday!  spring is here in durango and björn and i are very excited that our siding will be complete very soon.  for now here are a few photos of the house from a fresh vantage point!

are you ready for this......

woo! i am absolutely thrilled to share the first photos of our barn wood siding installed!  matt and orion have been working so hard that last few days to get the siding up.

roofing paper and metal flashing at base of north house

the first step for installing the siding was to wrap the north part of the house in black felt roofing paper.  this paper acts as an additional moisture barrier between the siding and the osb sheathing of the house, but more importantly because the barn wood is imperfect the black paper will keep any small holes from being unsightly.  there is also a chance the in the future that a knot could pop out of this very old wood as it shifts and shimmies around

the guys did a wonderful job covering the house

matt and orion also added a metal drip edge along the bottom of the house which will turn a great rusty red color.  this helps to direct any water that may get behind the siding away from the foundation.  it is funny how terrified of water i have become during this process, water is your worst enemy in construction and we have done everything in our power to make sure water is contained and controlled.

putting up the felt paper

matt hard at work on the roof

when we started the process of putting on the siding we thought we would execute a reverse board and batten style siding.  however, we quickly decided that this would look too chunky and way to textural.  the wood itself is so distinctive and beautiful that we felt it best to apply the wood is a very clean lined way.  so we decided to apply the wood in a way called board to board.  each board has to be put through the table saw to make a straight edge and then is abutted together.  this creates a very tight looking siding and utilizes the most material possible.

the siding stating to go up on the south face

matt and orion have done a beautiful job of putting together the siding.  it is certainly an artform, having to match each piece with its neighboring piece.  and trying to make it look random without trying to hard that it looks like you were trying!

the boards are fit together as tightly as possible

Orion at the saw

a lot more of the siding finished

björn and i are so incredibly happy with the look of the north house and it feels even better that many people have stopped by to compliment the progress and to comment on how much they love the barn wood.

products galore: siding is purchased

just to remind you of our original vision of the exterior of the house here is the rendering that my grandfather completed for us back in october.

as you can see from the rendering the right side of the house is a grey-brown vertical barn wood as is the future garage, the area under the front porch is seen as horizontal white painted siding, and the left "house" is vertical painted wood siding in a reverse board and batten style. we also envisioned white trim board framing the geometry of the house which we really liked.

well, as usual we started thinking and looking a photos and researching material options.  one of the biggest hurdles björn and i have encountered is the insane number of choices for every material and product out there.  and the internet doesn't help it just opens up a world of possibilities which when one is trying to make a decision can be a huge hinderance.

anyway after looking into cedar siding, stained new pine siding options to look like old barn wood, and a "barn wood" product made from old beetle kill or forest fire pine we decided on a few things.

montrose, colorado

we wanted real barn wood, old, grey, weathered barn wood- period.   so that is what we were going to get.  all said and done the old barn wood was not cheap but with all of the staining and/or finishing that a new piece of pine would need to simulate old wood the cost was very comparable.  we searched reclaimed barn wood online and found a lumber yard in nearby montrose, colorado that had beautiful hardwood boards.

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southern wood imports had a wonderful selection of bundled reclaimed hardwood as well as reclaimed pine boards and beautiful reclaimed timbers.  we drove the land cruiser (sherman) and the trailer (kiwi) to montrose to pick out our siding. 

björn watching the guys load up our siding

björn and i chose to purchase hardwood siding for a number of reasons.  hardwoods have a beautiful grey finish when weathered and these woods are a mixture of white oak, chestnut and hickory from barns in tennessee.  because these are eastern trees that also means that here in colorado there aren't many (if any) bugs that are adapted to eating these hard woods. most of the wood infesting pests are used to sinking their chompers into soft delicious pine.  that was a huge reason NOT to use pine, the other was that over a long period of time pine can weather to a black color out here in the colorado sun.

we chose two beautiful bundles of grey hardwood varying in widths from 4 to 12 inches with the majority of the pieces being around 6-8 inches and about 12 feet long.  kiwi, the trailer did an amazing job hauling this wood over three mountain passes! one of which is the infamous million dollar highway from ouray to silverton over red mountain pass.  needless to say i was a little nervous that sherman wouldn't make it but it was easy-peasy!

woo hoo all loaded up!

i thought i would share a photo of the million dollar highway
so that you could get the idea of its scariness!  

the wood ended up being $3.80 a square foot and we purchased about 1500 sf for a total of $5,700.00 to cover half of our house.  when we start to think about some of less expensive siding options we start to feel a little crazy spending so much to make our house look old, but we really hope that our little project will look amazing and we think that this beautiful material will make that happen!