PHASE #14 of Home Remodeling Project
Siding is applied -- at a snails pace!

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Attaching cedar shakes is a very long manual process! Note that there are different types of cedar shingles requiring a varying degree of preparation from absolutely NONE to extensive. The following case required each cedar shake be squared off on one end, and than attached to the house with a nail or two. I didn't worry too much about a small gap between each shingle but if you do, it results in even more handling of each shingle. For a VERY rustic look, you can use cedar shakes like these which are about 18" long and very greatly in width. I used a 7" exposure meaning that after you place a shingle, the next row will cover all but 7" of it. This gave a rough look as can been seen from these photos.

Starting the first row of shingles took the most time to figure out. The reason for this is because I wanted to make sure the singles on either side would be alighted with these. Since the sides would start their first row much lower, I had to measure the exposure breaks up from the foundation and mark the first exposure break which represented a realistic row on the front of the house.

Here I've completed about half the front of the house... This took me a couple weekends to first run 30lb tar paper, cut and paint all the window trim and corner trim, and then attach and seal each trim piece to the window. I gave each window extra special treatment. First I ran tar paper around the window as I would normally run it across the side of the house. When the tar paper encountered a window I would use a utility knife to cut it snug against the window frame and continue running new roles across the side of the house until it stopped a foot (or more) above each window, then I cut the trim. Each window trim was simple cedar stock that is 5/8"x3 1/2" which was flush if not just slightly more exposed than the aluminum window frame. You can also use manufactured lumber for increased durability, but I just stuck with cedar for all trim.

Cedar is a great material because if its prepared right it will last for many, many years (and it looks better and better each year - ages in a very desirable way). I primed all sides of the trim, painted all sides twice with Benjamin Moore oil based glossy white trim paint, nailed them in place with galvanized nails, calked the gap between the window frame and trim with 50 year GE brilliant white calk, and then also calked the gap between the trim and the tar paper. I also installed a white aluminum drip cap across the top piece of trim and let it slightly overlap on the ends of the trim, and then started a new line of tar paper across the side of the house which sat on top of the drip cap (which is the same as the top of the trim) so as to completely cover the drip cap's nailing flange Before I shingled around the window. On the corners of the house, I used 2x6 and 2/4 cedar lumber to form the corner trim and sealed them similar to the window trim. Using these, allowed them to stick out beyond the shingles and in a way contain them for better aesthetics. The 2x6 always faced the front of the house or back of the house. Upon completing each side of the house, I went back and touched up all the trim with the same oil based paint and calk where necessary. The combination of all this preparation pretty much assured that water can NOT get behind the drip cap or down underneath the trim.

During all this, I had many people come buy and say, "Yo, why don't you just use vinyl and be done with it already". The problem with vinyl is that it costs a lot of money and once you go there, you best like the color of your house because you are now stuck with it. Vinyl also has a very "industrial" look to it - and its pretty hard to carve out "charm" from an industrial house but some people attempt to do this. The old world look of conventional cedar shingles will never go out of style. Shingles are cheap, and if you have the time, this can be pretty reasonable to do in phases. Here I've completed shingling just above the top window -- while I waited for the vent to arrive, I painted one coat on the porch beams.

After looking at a number of different vents, I opted for this plastic one that blended in well with the aluminum soffit and facia and didn't look too out of place against the glossy white trim paint. Behind this vent, I cut a large triangle hole in the siding and then nailed the vent in place. Once in place, the vent came with a plastic trim piece which fit over the nailing flange and fit snug against the exposed soffit. I then cut two rows of shingles and fit them in place to finish the front siding.

I'd actually drove around and looked at a number of New England homes to look at what kinds of vents they had, as well as what kind of soffit and fascia they used. What I used was very similar only just different materials - in NE everything is made of wood! The only thing they did differently was use a very wide board 1x12 along the foundation of the house which is where they started the first row of shingles. I opted not to use this base board.

This is the east side of the house which is largely unfinished. I still need to remove the old shingles, bury the electrical wires entering the house, and then tar and reside this portion of the house. I hope to do this in the next couple weeks to get ready for winter.

Starting on the east side required some work on North east corner. Essentially, wrapping tar paper around the corner of the house, cutting the 2x6 and 2x4 to form the corner of the house, as well as installing a light for the corner of the house where I had to run this wire inside the house down to a convenient switch. Since the corner was very tall, I staggered two sections of 2x6 and 2x4 so that there wasn't some ugly break.

Once the corner was in place, I tar papered in the window as can be seen here. Since the east side of the house is BIG, I only ran the tar paper in small sections that represented work I could do over a weekend. I then installed and sealed the trim around the window and began shingling. The other hard part about this corner was to keep a straight line of shingles all the way across - essentially the larger the surface area the more concerned you need to be about keeping a straight line. To do this I would measure down from the soffit and and mark these measurements on the tar paper. These marks would be used to snap a line of chalk which was used to ensure each line of shingles was straight.

I got overly ambitious and started shingling up the back side of the house as well. However that required building a small diagonal shed roof over the back door which was moved from its previous spot on the north side of the house to the small wall opposite the hot tub. Building this shed roof became a priority upon the first major rain which dumped buckets of rain off the roof right as you walk out the door. Once the roof was constructed, I shingled it with left over asphalt shingles from the roof, installed soffit and facia (also using left overs) and then finally began to tar in the and around the roof. Along each side of the roof I installed galvanized steal rain shields which pushed rain away from the side of the house and onto the shed roof. I also installed a gutter and cut a hole in the deck to run the spout straight down and then routed it under the deck all the way to the farthest edge of the deck away from the house. You can also see two wires which were from the telephone company dangling in the air. I ended up moving these under ground in a later step so that there was nothing connecting to the siding of the house.

You can see the finished shed roof and where everything is tar papered in. Completing this gave me a green light to move ahead with shingling. some some of the back of the house as the east side of the house looked daunting!

Eventually, the east side of the house was completed, see later phases. During this process I got totally burned out on handling shakes and moved to white cedar shingles. I had traveled to NE again, and noticed they were using different types of shingles than what was available in MN. NE shingles, which are available at any lumber yard or home store were machined to a consistent thickness, clear of knots, and were also perfectly square. The closest thing I could find to these were white cedar roof shingles from Menards. So I bought several bundles, tore off the shakes on the north side of the house, and began using the white cedar with a 5" exposure just like I'd seen in NE. These white cedar shingles occasionally had a knot in them, but where machined to the same thickness and were mostly square. I tossed the ones with any kind of hole or discoloration in them. I completed the back of the house in half the time it took the east side in spite of all the windows, corners, and peaks I had to deal with.

While the cedar shakes really looked awesome once the house was completed on the east side, I preferred the white cedar over the red cedar shakes because they fit tighter. The red cedar aged in different ways creating gaps in the siding. Because of the overlap this was ok, but in the case of the white cedar they aged tighter and did not have any gaps. The gaps in the red cedar attracted wasps and other creatures to find refuge in the siding where as the white cedar was as tight as can be with no gaps for nests - it just looked very clean which I like. If I was to do it all over again, I'd find a NE company to just truck what ever I needed out to the building site. Their shingles are the best hands down. However, if you don't have the budge to this transportation cost, check out Menards shingles, they are like $17 a bundle which covers a lot of ground - even if you are only exposing 5". One other nice thing about only exposing 5" is that you really get some additional insulation out of the siding - from 5/8" to 3/4" which is an added bonus. No idea what the R value of that equates to but it ends up be quite a air tight seal once complete.

Note, Vinyl has near ZERO insulation value and can also whistle in high wind. You won't get that from shingles - especially ones that fit tight like these white cedar shingles.

Special Thanks goes out to those who also helped but that I don't have photos of -- they are in no particular order:
Al Bahlmann (my dad) - Helped with building the back roof
Steve Schreen (my brother inlaw) - Helped shingle the rest of the front of the house -- what I could not reach -- tremendous helper!
Elliot Malcom (my neighbor) - Helped cut shingles when he wasn't watching the kids
Peter Bruss ( neighbor, fishing buddy) - Helped cut shingles and install the vent in the front of the house

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