Weekend project - installing siding on the garage wall

Saturday was fun, I was looking forward to installing vinyl siding on our garage. I woke up and read instructions on the internet that explained how to install vinyl siding while I tanked up on caffeine.  I spent half of the day putting up felt paper, and the "J" channel for the vinyl. I attached the starter strip the way it made sense to me, which of course was wrong. So I had to remove it and reinstall. The starter strip must have the curve against the wall. (I use Google Documents instead of MS Office, and love the new draw functionality.)

Once I got started, the vinyl went on pretty quickly. I was thankful to be on the east side of the garage installing the vinyl, as the wind coming out of the west - north west was cold and strong. We live across the street from a reservoir, so when the wind blows, it is cold.

When I purchased the vinyl, I didn't really measure, I figured it was somewhere around 2 square, so I started with a box, which is 2 square. I didn't think it was enough, but once it was gone I would know better how much more I needed. By the end of Saturday I was about 8 foot up the wall, with all of the straight runs complete.

I had to make some modifications on the corners, since they were going to hold the vinyl on one side, and butt against the stucco on the other sides. I also stuffed some steel wool into the void to keep the critters from moving in. Chipmunks may be cute, but they wreak havoc on your stuff.

Later in the day I installed an outlet in front of the house for Christmas decorations, and hung some strings of icicle lights along the gutter. I will put some lights on our dogwood tree later this week.

On Saturday night we went through our seed collection and started to talk about what we would plant. I have been saving our old windows as I replace them, and will use either the aluminum storms or the wood windows to make cold frames. I am selling the balance of them on Craigslist. They are cheap, since I would give them away, but people seem to be more reliable if there is money involved. If they are still around in the spring, I can always use Freecycle to get rid of them.

On Sunday I woke up early, and with the wind still howling and the temps just above freezing, I headed out to complete the siding. My honey was headed to Palmer Hardware ( As much as I like Palmer Hardware, it pales in comparison to Jones Hardware, which is the local hardware store where I grew up. ), so I called her and asked her to buy a bevel. Actually, I couldn't remember the name, so we engaged in a game of non-visual charades ("folds like a knife, is bigger, doesn't have a blade, has a wing nut, wood on one side, metal on the other... no it isn't a pocket knife... and can be used to capture the angle of something"), even allowing the perplexed hardware store employee to participate. He lost, but my honey eventually sent me a picture of something that fit the description, and she won! Actually I won, because hanging precariously off the side of a ladder with a framing square to read the measurement isn't fun.

With bevel in hand, I continued on with the siding, and by mid-afternoon I was done. My concerns about how much vinyl I needed were for nothing. I had about 4-5 feet left in the box, which is very little considering how I guessed the number.

The wind worked to my favor in the end. Normally I'd have about 10-15 visits with the obligatory small talk with my neighbors. With the cold, I had one offer of help, and a quick chat, and one over-the-fence comment that I picked a cold weekend to do this. The cold made cutting the vinyl more challenging. If I used sheet metal snips, the vinyl would crack in the thick parts. So I used a PVC saw to cut the thick parts, and the shears to cut the rest. I had the PVC saw from a few years ago when we had a sailboat and needed to build a tent over it for the winter. Tools... do we ever have enough?

My next garage project will be to paint the trim on the back wall, sides, and windows. I also need to fix the windows, the wood has rotted in places, and the chipmunks have found out how to get in. But that will wait for a couple of months, I am moving to the next project - finishing our storage space on the second floor.