Monday, September 30, 2013

Easy Breezy Beautiful Shutters

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I knew the workshop needed shutters.  There was too much siding and the windows weren't "substantial" enough...shutters would balance everything out.  So this is a story about the shutters that Heidi built.  Not jack.  Oh yeah, did I mention they cost me less than $5 per shutter to build?!  You should need only one 8' or 10' (depending on your shutter size) pine 1x4 per shutter.  That's cheaper than a large pumpkin spice latte with an extra shot of espresso!  

I was determined to build these shutters 100% by myself, no help from Brent.  Seriously, how hard can shutters be?!  Building them wasn't tricky, but the process of assembling was a little harder than I thought. 

To begin, I took some measurements next to a window to determine how tall and wide the shutters needed to be.  I decided to make them the same height as the top of the window trim and then stop them just above the window sill at the bottom.  Here's my reasoning for that...if we pretended these shutters were able to close over the window, like their original intention, the shutter would almost rest on top of the sill, not cover the sill.


Since I knew I was going to use 1x4's to build the shutters, I just needed to determine if I wanted the shutters to be 3 boards wide or 4, to minimize the amount of cutting needed.  3 boards wide looked like it would be perfect.  


I wanted to begin by cutting my 1x4's to the correct height first.  These happen to be 31.5 inches.  I began by trimming a half inch off of the end of my 1x4 to square it up. 




Now here is a tiny tip.  Since I needed to make 8 shutters and each shutter would be three 1x4's wide...I was going to need to cut this same length 24 times.  Brent said instead of measuring and then cutting each piece, we needed to set up a "stop".   See that short piece of wood clamped to the table on the left side of the picture?  That's the stop.  Instead of measuring each piece, you just slide it to that piece of wood and make your cut.  



After cutting all 24 of my pices, I needed to figure out how wide to cut the piece that would go across the top and bottom of the shutter to hold the whole thing together.  I just laid my 3 pieces out and left a small gap between each one.  When I had the spacing that I liked, we measured across the middle to get a length.  Using the same process as before, I set up a stop and cut 2 pieces for each shutter, so 16 total.

Brent isn't actually doing anything, just posing for a photo.


Owen is learning the ropes.


Here are all of my pieces, ready for assembly.


I laid one out to make sure everything was going to fit together.


At this point I was singing, "perrrrrfeeeecccct!"


Brent gave me another tip here, but did not, for the record, touch my wood (he he he).  He said to get the two outside pieces screwed together first, and then slip the middle piece in last and just eyeball it to make sure you have the same gap on each side.  Then you aren't trying to hold three pieces steady at once.  After I measured and marked 4 inches from each bottom to determine where the cross bar would go, I flushed up the edges and clamped it together.


Then I held a piece at the ends to make sure they were flush there as well.  This took a little adjusting to get them perfect.


Here's what it looked like all clamped together.


Here's the important part...flip it over!!  That way the screws will go in from the back of the shutter and you will not see any screws from the front!!  My mind wandered off on a few of my shutters during this step and I forgot to flip...so those shutters ended up on the backside of the shed where we can't see them.  Oops.


I used 1.25 inch exterior screws, two in each board.  12 total in each shutter. 


In this next photo, you can see how I have screwed the outside pieces together and am lining up the center piece.  I just did the best I could to eyeball it and then sent a few screws through to finish her off.


And this is what they look like assembled.  Adorbs.  



Time to really finish them now.  Owen's job was to give them a light sanding to remove any rough spots.


Here is my primer of choice.  I use it for interior and exterior projects-but not for cabinetry.  I like to use an oil based primer for that.


After I had applied the first coat of color, you could see white lines in the vertical spaces between the boards where my brush couldn't reach.  I found some light blue spray paint left over from a previous project and used it to hit the vertical lines.  My top coat of paint covered the spray paint color.  A person could have prepainted all of the boards before assembly to avoid this problem, but I think that would taken longer.


I did allow Brent to hang them.  Since cement board is so hard he has to pre-drill holes.  He just held the shutter up to the position we wanted and drilled through the shutter and the siding.  Then just sunk a screw in.  One on top and one on the bottom.



These are the 3 inch screws he used.


And done!


Halleluja!!


I will probably dab a bit of paint on the screws so they aren't as noticeable.




UPDATE**  The workshop is done - see the final pics here!

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

S.O.S. Part 2

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And now for the exciting conclusion to the soffiting saga.  I know you've been hitting refresh on your browser every 10 seconds awaiting this moment.  Maybe soffits aren't cool to you....who am I kidding, they are a bore but they must be dealt with.  And since these are unique, they deserve some attention.

I've already enlightened you with pictures of the soffits under the front and back peaks.  Now we move into uncharted territory...bum bum bum....the sides!  I'm really trying to make this as exciting as possible...fail. Siding had to go up before we could install these sections.

This is what the underside of the soffits looked like before installation.


Brent added a piece of blocking to each roof truss to give him a place to nail the soffit boards to.



Then he just cut boards to fit and wha-la.  Done.



Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Ain't No Party Like A Siding Party!

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Bet ya' thought we didn't get any work done last week.  Wrong-o.  There were a ton of little details we needed to tie up before we could start siding on Saturday morning.  Plus, it was crazy hot out so one hour per night was all we could handle.  One evening we had to go pick up our siding from Menard's, the next night we had the ultimate pleasure of unloading it - all 40 pieces.  By Friday night, we were set up for a success full siding adventure.  That same night, Brent put the front windows in after lots of pleading on my behalf.



Saturday morning, Brent's dad and our neighbor Brad came over to help us with the siding.  It was a slow start because the nail gun we borrowed from a friend broke after putting a few pieces up so we had to run to ABC Rental and rent one.  Here's our process and progress.  Warning - this is NOT Siding 101.  We had no idea what we were doing.  There were a lot of moments that started like this..."um....I think we could do it this way...".  If you are a professional siding contractor reading this, please stop now.

We started by setting the bottom piece of siding around the entire shed so we could make sure everything would be level off of that piece.  This was also a way that we could ensure that when you look at the shed at a corner, the siding on each side of the corner would match up.






Our pieces of siding came in 12 foot lengths.  The shed is about 19 feet long.  Where ever there was a seam, we would slide a piece of tin behind the siding to help shed water and then we would leave a tiny gap between the two pieces of siding.  Water isn't the enemy...trapped water is the enemy.  Luckily, no one will be living in this structure, so we don't have to be too terrible concerned if a drop or two of water leaks in.



Once we got that first course up, it was time to rock.  Brent's dad would cut our siding to length, Brad and I would get the piece lined up and then Brent would nail it on.



Brent made these two handy templates to make sure we were staying consistent with our siding placement.  You just tuck that bottom piece under the siding lip and then rest the new piece of siding on top.


That's concrete dust haze in the air.



 The first full side we did took the longest because we were like Stella...trying to get her groove back.  After that first side was done, we did the opposite side and the back sort of simultaneously.




This is the back.  Scaffolding needed to be set up to reach the higher points.


Here's Brad and Brent, looking busy.  They were in a huge hurry to get done because their football game was on in the afternoon. 




By the time 1pm rolled around, we were completely done.





We don't get invited to a lot of parties, unless you count little kid birthday parties.  Nor do we host a lot of parties.  But this was one EPIC siding party!  

1930's Cottage Bathroom Remodel

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