I’m really getting bored with nothing but siding. Luckily I’m almost finished with only the two end gables remaining. This weekend I sided the front and left sides of the cabin. The front went quickly once all the pieces were cut. The left side took a while though having the scaffold saved quite a bit of time. There were quite a few warped and twisted boards among the long pieces used on the left side but I found a good method of drawing them into alignment was to use long deck screws on the ends to pull them into place. I countersunk the screws and caulked the holes. I also caulked the butt joints where two pieces were joined. I only used two full 16’ pieces since they are difficult to transport. For the other 16’ courses I used a combination of two pieces in 12’/4’, 10’/6’, and 8’/8’ lengths. You can see where the joints are in the photos by the brown caulk lines.

Saturday I installed the siding on the side of the cabin with the utility room. Lots of small pieces and a few big ones at the top of the wall. The pieces at the top were time consuming because I had to move from utility roof to left side ladder back to roof to right side ladder.

Sunday I stayed home and cut and bundled pieces for the front of the cabin and about a third of the left wall.

I was planning on installing more siding on Monday but the forecast said rain off and on all day so I’m postponing until Friday.

I only worked one day this weekend and just put up some more siding. I finished the rear wall, not including the gable, and started on the side with the utility room. I also painted the door frame and installed a lockset on the utility room door, finished staining the porch, and added oil to the generator. It was really hot. Here are a few pics.

This past weekend I took care of a few random tasks and started installing exterior siding. Upon arriving at the cabin I discovered that the bird flying around the loft on my last visit was thankfully gone so the first thing I did was install the soffit on the remaining open eave to hopefully “bird-proof” the cabin interior.

My water tank arrived last week and I needed to put it in the utility room prior to installing the utility room door since it was slightly too wide to fit through the door frame. The tank is 31” in diameter, 72” high, and holds 200 gallons. I installed some indoor/outdoor carpet on the floor of the utility room, placed the water tank inside, and finally installed the utility room door.

I started installing quarter log siding on the cabin’s exterior, beginning with the rear wall. After installing courses up to about head height I realized installing on the upper half of the wall would be very difficult and time consuming using just a ladder. When I finally got a makeshift scaffold in place and prepared to continue with the installation, my generator cut out due to low oil. I went ahead and applied stain to the installed siding. I want to stain as I go so the siding will have some sun protection immediately and also so I’m not faced with the boring task of applying stain for days and days.

I took a couple of pictures of the porch since I hadn’t taken any of the full porch since I stained the deck.

This past weekend I installed sheathing on the utility building. I had enough of the Zip Systems sheathing left over for all but one side of the building. I used standard OSB for that side, covered in 30lb tar paper.

I also installed purlins on the roof of the utility building and cleaned up around the cabin. There was a large bird flying around in the loft that I couldn’t get out. Hopefully it will fly out before this weekend. I really need to close in the one remaining open eave.

I’m having the siding delivered this week so if all goes well, I’ll start siding this weekend.