Fixin' Up the Bungalow

This is a repost of a prior entry from my woodworking blog at Lumberjocks. I am trying to centralize the info about my house project. The work in this entry took place in 2004

The paint was peeling, many shingles were missing, or severely damaged. The rafter tails were rotted. It was time to paint.

We quickly removed the a.c. unit from the front of the house and the rat highway (Palm tree).

We found a painter through a neighbor (Good fortune since he painted the house whose colors we liked).

Did I mention the missing shingles?

These are actually redwood barn shakes that come in 36” lengths. For my house’s design they are cut into 18” lengths. After 90 years they are britlle like glass and they get broken during removal.

Above I use my mitre saw to cut the shingles to length. You can also just score them with a utility knife and then snap them.. But the power saw let me cut several at once. Big chunks of the driveway side were damage or coverd with plywood.

I love my nail gun.

Shingle work does require a little planning ahead so that you don’t have to face nail too many. I learned a slick method where you set the shingle low. Angle nail up under the top shingle and then knock the shingle upward with a wood block so that the nails remain hidden. Though the nail gun really solves all of this.

I also learned to chamfer the corners together to create a tight seam.

Meanwhile the painters were busy scraping… and sanding… and scraping…

Color

After the painters were done… We decided we did not like the columns painted white. So we went out by ourselves and started painting them again.

The finished paint job with more planting in the front. I also made some wood screens.

It is swell. 5 colors in all.

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This entry was posted by Gizmodyne on Saturday, August 11th, 2007 at 7:32 am and is filed under Exterior. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.