The siding crew should be finished tomorrow. They're doing an awesome job and have great attention to detail. I can't believe it's only been about a week! And we tinkered with those old siding boards for how long? We have been rushing home from work each day to see the progress. Here are some visuals.
They started on the front (east) side and worked their way to the back, shown below.
We're really sprucin' up the place huh? :)
We decided after tearing down the old siding boards that it would be best to refill the eaves with spray foam insulation. Originally we had fiberglass insulation stuffed in the voids but it really wasn't the best option. We noticed that we were gaining/losing air over the winter and during the 100+ degree weather we just had. Luckily the spray foam crew was able to fit us in their busy schedule before the siding crew started. We got a call on Sunday afternoon that they'd be coming the next morning to start. So Sunday night we scrambled to get the windows, doors, and roof covered in plastic. I guess the foam splatters and can fly all over the place and make a mess. By doing the prep work ourselves we saved $400. It was getting dark and just rained so it probably wasn't the best time to climb on a slippery metal roof, but that's not an issue for Todd. Some of you might not know that he's part monkey and loves the chance to get some climbing in. He monkeyed right up the roof with the plastic roll as I assisted (watched) from below. 
We set up a pretty shady scaffolding rig so the guys could access the shed dormer eaves. We used clamps (which the roofers left), a 2x4, and our trusty blue ladder. We decided to put a ridge-rest underneath the ladder to protect the roof from scratching and possible movement.
Here I am waiting to grab a leg if Todd were to fall. No not really, I was just holding the ladder.
Two guys showed up the next morning from Nova Spray Foam. My mom walked up to our house and snapped these photos. That's a pretty nice shirt he has on. :)
It took them a couple hours to fill the eaves with the puffy white stuff. The foam is the way to go and fills all the nooks and crannies. Some of it even managed to squirt into the house. That goes to show you how much air was getting in and out of our house! Now it's on to the siding....
We played hookie from work yesterday to get some work done around the house. We finished pulling down the oak boards and yanking out all the nails. The boards are now stacked and ready to be restacked over at the farm. We still have a little more work to do before the siding crew can start, like patching holes in the tyvek and reinsulating the eaves.
We also spent time landscaping and hanging out with Logan, Kelly and River. I love this shot of River with the light coming in the windows. What is it with little boys and trains? 
We took a walk with River through the woods and picked strawberries in our overgrown, neglected garden. It's rather embarrassing showing these photos because things have totally gotten out of hand in the garden.
We need River to come over more often to help out with the weeds!
Here's a chipped box turtle that we stumbled upon in the woods.
Sing with us now! We started taking down our oak siding last weekend. The boards certainly come down faster than they go up! This was a tough decision to make, but we've got to do what's best for the long haul...or as Kenny Rogers would say, "know when to walk away".
Not sure what we'll use the boards for, but they're ready to be stacked over at the farm. We're about halfway done. 
We had a siding contractor come by last night to take some measurements for a quote and he actually laughed at the remaining boards on the house. I think he thought we were crazy for using oak boards. Oh well. We don't blame him, our house is looking pretty pitiful right now. I guess it makes for a good before & after though. We decided on a warm gray hardiplank siding with white trim. Yes, very different than it currently looks. From the sounds of it, once we have the materials, it should take about 2 weeks to get everything hung. That includes the siding, trim, fascia board, and gutters. We can't wait and could kick ourselves for not doing this sooner.
Here are some photos taken last weekend while putting up our siding. We've decided to get the first coat of stain on the boards to help slow down the moving and cracking. 
Our plan is to put all the siding boards up on the entire lower level of the house first, then we'll rent a boom arm to reach all those fun, high up places. We'll put the battens on once all the boards are up. We are blowing through the piles of boards that we've cut up so far, so there will be plenty more sawmilling to come.
And what post is complete without pouty Willow…
Just kidding, well maybe not really. We've been running around crazy lately with this red roof house, questioning why the hell we ever decided to build this ourselves. We certainly have our good days and our bad ones. We laugh now, but Todd threw his first hammer at the poor deck Monday night when he was nailing up siding. When one of us gets in a foul mood, the other one usually jumps on board to join in the fun. Funny how that works. As for the siding, last weekend the Woodmizer was back in action in a new shady location. We cut up a handful of oak logs with high hopes to use the boards for our siding but soon found out that most of the wood was no good. Over half of what we sawed up was rotten and was donated to the burn pile. Oh well, there are plenty of other dead oak trees on the property. Here's how things are shaping up so far with the siding. Just imagine the battens and a nice stain. We've got a ways to go but it's a start!
Here are also a few photos from our latest tiling project in the upstairs tub/shower. 
We are both taking the day off from work tomorrow to divide and conquer. We'll be busy tiling, hanging siding, taking delivery of the remainder of our kitchen appliances and probably running to Home Depot a few times. Seems like we're getting pulled in a million directions, but I guess that's to be expected when building a house.
In a previous post we mentioned our cedar siding. Well, after discovering that the western red cedar plywood is on backorder for 3 months and that "true" cedar board & battens are insanely expensive, we are exploring other options. We are seriously thinking about using white oak from the property for siding and putting the boards up green, just as they did in the old days. We weren’t too wild about using cedar that's trucked all the way across the country anyway. We already have a good number of dead and felled oak trees on the property and there's also a big cost advantage going this route. So we called our Woodmizer friend Matthew to check out his availability. Then we found out more bad news, Matthew sold his mill. Sigh. Now we are searching locally for someone else who might have a portable Woodmizer and are even, dare we say, thinking about buying our own sawmill.
Yesterday we took an inventory of possible oak trees to use. There is a huge oak that came down during the 2004 tornado. It lies just down the hill from Holmes and Linda's house. We carefully sawed into it and soon discovered that about half (20 ft) of the massive log was rotten. The other section appeared to be in great shape. Our plan was to put the 2 "good" 10-ft sections on Sam's home-made cart, then haul it up to the field. The sequence of events went something like this:
Cutting the first 20 foot section to see if it's any good to use.
No good. It's rotten, although it had really pretty fungi on it. 
The poor bobcat pushed, but was unable to lift the massive section out of the way. So much for putting the sections on the cart. 
Cutting into the other 20 foot section. 
Checking (and smelling) the oak. The section looked great and smelled awesome too. It seemed like every gnat in Loudoun County was swarming around us and it's surprising they didn't end up in any of the photos. 
So now it's time to figure out the sawmill dilemma. More on that later...
