The Front of the House: Door and Decorative Roof Strip

Not a major workday, but small updates to report:
we forgot to seal the raw wood on the windows so we've masked off the glass and are painting those with a couple coats of BioShield Aqua Resin. Masking is a bit tedious, but it's getting done in the name of giving eternal life to the windows.

Here's what the front of the house looks like at the present time (picture taken one hour ago!):


Behold! The deadbolt was installed in the door. The porch light is visible in this image as well (thank you, Ace Hardware and compact fluorescent light bulb). We have yet to install the top of the door jamb but we'll get on that soon.
The diamond and octagon windows seem to look nice together -- a good thing as this was not really planned or drawn out in advance, it just happened. The two windows on the far right are for the bay window seating area. In the Tumbleweed plans it called for slightly larger windows which had a long lead time from the vendor we chose; these smaller windows were available sooner.
Great! We didn't get any tar paper on today after all but that is still in the cards for the proximate future.

All Windows Go

At long last, a full set of 8x10 color glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one.

Or, short of that, more pictures showing y'all what the heck the house looks like in its current state.

TODAY the last two windows were installed. To make up for the lack of other photos on the blog recently, we took step-by-step photos of the installation of the last window. Here we go:



pic1: Here you can see the Tyvek has been wrapped around slightly on the inside of the rough opening of the window.pic2: the OCTAGON! in the flesh! We had to reduce the width of the window to ensure that the inside surface (on inside of house) would be flush with the interior siding. We've chosen to use 5/16" knotty pine siding for the interior but the window was built for slightly thicker interior siding. However, this was soon corrected. Thank you, jigsaw. The octagon came with flanges to install in a groove all the way around (one flange is visible here).



pic3: Two things of note: Protecto Wrap is used on the bottom of the rough opening to protect the wall against the unlikely event of water accumulation/pooling between window and wall. Silicon is then applied in a bead all the way around the opening. Silicon hardens pretty quickly so you shouldn't start applying it until you've already done a dry fit of the window (with shims) and know exactly where you want the window to go.


pic4: Next, insert the window into the opening and predrill the holes. We used 1-5/8" screws.

pic5: And we're done! Put Protecto-Wrap over the edges to seal out the weather and it's a done deal.

pic6: Blast from the past: a work-in-progress shot of the electric subpanel. It's a 100A subpanel. All components are Square-D.

Woohoo! That's the news of the day. Tomorrow: putting up some tar paper.

The Door is Ajar!

Progress! Last night we hung the door. Hinges, jamb, weather stripping, oak threshold and all. A great event made greater by the fact that the trailer is on a slightly uneven surface so it's hard to say whether the door will swing naturally shut due to being slightly mismounted or if it just might miraculously be completely perfect once the trailer is back on level ground. Only time will tell!

We made the door out of Spanish Cedar, chosen because of its 1) natural built-in bug resistance and 2) bargain basement low price (compared to fancy exotic woods). We learned this factoid: cedar dust is not good for your health. Wear a dust mask when working with it.

It's a panel door and took about 3 full days to make in a friend's woodshop. Necessary tools to build your own panel door are: joiner, router, random orbital sander, chisels, hammer, table saw, and, if possible, a mortising machine (like a drill press but makes, gasp, square holes -- no joke).

Home Depot special ordered us a 10"x10" window for $20 which we put in the door.

What else.... we learned that some brands of metal roofs need their own proprietary type of underlayment. Apparently certain tar papers accelerate the corrosion of steel roofs. Interesting factoid of the day.

We used a deadbolt for the door which is keyed on both sides for added safety. Since there's a window in the door which a thief could ostensibly smash and reach through it seemed like a good idea to make sure there was no lever on the inside of the lock that could be easily turned. When no one's home, the key won't be in the other side. Until world peace descends upon us, this idea seemed prudent, even if there are lots of other smashable windows in the place.

Hooray for doors! The house now looks way more legitimate and house-like.