Selecting siding was a process involving compromise for us. We knew we wanted a low maintenance option and while I like the look of LP Smart Siding, the Mr. let me know that seams with that product must be very carefully attended to and may still turn out poorly, even at that. Cut to: no LP smart siding.
I drew my own line in the sand. I had 2 requirements: If we went with vinyl, then I did not want the typical 4 inch lap AND the front of the house must be a shake product of some sort. After months of debate and turmoil over cost, color, etc. we finally came to an agreement and so far, I'm pretty pumped with the decisions we made.
Front of the house: We decided to go with a vinyl shake product in the color midnight blue. Although we haven't installed any of it yet, let me tell you the texture and feel of this product are primo (but so is the price tag). Due to cost, we got enough to cover the front of the home only.
Sides/ back of the house: We picked up some Certainteed Certa-Plank with a 7 inch lap...we have installed some of this product and goodness, it does look sharp.
Ok, enough words, you want some pictures, right? The first place we sided is on one side of the new addition. We used Zip R sheathing for the addition, so we didn't have any additional exterior insulation steps for this part of the house and we could just get to it.
Step 1: Affix your corner post. The corner post has built in J channel that the vinyl Certa-Plank fits right into.
Step 2: Affix your starter strips, making sure everything is level and start adding layers of siding. Be sure to cut your siding material to stagger seams.
Step 3: Carefully fabricate your top row of siding by ripping down a piece and sliding it in.
Woot! We both very much like how this bit turned out and we are excited to see the rest of the house sided. However, for the existing structure parts of the house we are not only re-siding; we are adding additional exterior insulation. As you can imagine adding 4 new layers (foam board, OSB, house wrap, and siding) to your house instead of only 1 is quite time consuming, so we are hoping the energy efficiency gains in the long run make the extra effort and money worth our while.
For the existing structure part of the project, I don't yet have any snazzy "after" photos, but I can show you before and during...
Here's the Mr. with the "before" shot of the back of the house.
Since I'm showing the before, let's not forget to highlight this masterpiece. I mean, who wouldn't want to live in this house? Ha!
Naturally, step 1 on the back of the house was to tear all the Cedar shake off, which only took a few hours. After that though, we wanted to paint the brick blue to match the new siding and while I did that the Mr. was hard to work adding the foam board and OSB insulating layers.
The Mr. also adding some metal flashing just above the brick, I painted that blue as well. The below pic is the "during".
After this, we (the Mr.) is adding brick moulding to all the windows back here. Once the windows have been trimmed out, we can house wrap and begin siding.
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