Category: laundry room

My brother comes to visit for a few days and what do I make him do? Work on the house, of course!

First, I had to fill all the dents and cracks with Bondo. This was the second pass with filler (first time was before I primed everything). As soon as it’s painted, all the missed dents and unfilled holes show up.

Then we had to caulk all the joints between windows and siding, and vertical joints between the trim and the siding. We have to be a bit careful when caulking: Mustn’t fill any joints that water trapped behind the siding might need to drain out of (ie, none of the horizontal joints in the siding, or the bottom of the window sill, etc).

Actually, painting the color on is fun. It’s the most rewarding part, makes everything look finished, and goes quite fast.

Well, as long as you are not working with the world’s pickiest Turtle. Here I’m painting the underside of the eave with a sky-blue color.

We’ve always had wasps nesting in the eaves on the back here. While I appreciate that they are part of our environment, and help with (other) pest control, I don’t particularly want them on my eaves. So, a bit of internet research led us to a Southern tradition that we noticed in New Orleans: Painting the underside of eaves with a sky-blue (the actual color varies by region, but it’s often called “Haint” blue) supposedly makes them less likely to nest. Worth a try, and it has a cool story to go with it.

Above left, Mole gritting her teeth waiting for super slow Turtle photographer.

So, here it is, the outside of the laundry room is painted — now on to the roof, the stairs, the inside…

Oh, and I’ve still got to paint that pipe.

Mole says: “That’s an attractive title.” I think she’s being sarcastic.

The fascia is the finish board that is attached around the edge of the roof to cover up the framing underneath. We’ve been working on putting that onto the laundry room roof.

This is how it looks before the fascia is installed. I had temporarily attached the gutter to the end of the rafters that stick out and support the roof overhang.

As usual for us, we re-used old wood. This wood was the siding on the laundry room before. It’s not Redwood, but it’s old-growth Douglas Fir. The photo above left shows the condition of the paint on the wood: bad! And there was a lot of other stuff stuck to it, such as duct tape (waterproofing?) and caulk. After many hours of removing the old paint with a heat gun, though, the wood is in excellent condition.

Above right is the piece of wood that will be the fascia. I’ve routed a quarter round decorative edge into the wood. Couldn’t resist.

To help the paint last better, we primed the boards on all sides before putting them up. This is supposed to help the wood to be more stable in changing humidity, so the paint lasts better. Above right: The fascia is attached. It looks better already. The framing is still exposed at its under side.

At the corner, I carefully shaped the end of the board so that the decorative edge goes around the corner. Above right: Mole is the best painter there is. No drips, and perfect coverage.

For the finish under the roof overhang, the soffit, I also reused the old wood. Most of the time is spent preparing the boards. Installing them takes relatively little time. I only have one small piece left to install. I’m leaving the gutter off for now, until after we replace the old leaky roof. But the next step is to install the trim around the windows.

I received the new motor for the vacuum cleaner, and successfully repaired “r2d2”!

(above left) r2d2 in pieces on my work bench. The old motor is on the left. Above right, all back together. It’s almost smiling 🙂

I put in the window for the bathroom at the side of the laundry room. There’s still one more window, but the company I ordered it from forgot to put the order into the manufacturer! So, it’s going to be a few more weeks. The photo above left is a view from the outside, above right photo view from the inside.

I think I have mentioned before how much work it is to re-use old siding. I’ve not figured out how many hours per foot it is; it’s probably too depressing. But, now that ‘r2d2’ is up and running again, Mole’s siding factory is back in operation. The first step is to strip off paint that is too damaged to save. Then, notches are patched with pieces of wood and waterproof glue, and splits are glued and clamped.

Then each piece is sanded on all sides. Notice the vacuum tube coming out of the sander (above left). Then the pieces are all vacuumed to remove dust.

*news break* Here’s Mole headed off to the store on her bike (above left).

And then back to painting the siding with two coats of primer on all sides.

Above left, Mole is waiting for paint to dry (it’s only slightly faster than grass growing.) Above right, fitting the restored siding on the house again. Cutting the siding to fit around around the pipe penetrations in the wall is tricky. You can see here two locations: the top left is from a sink, the lower right is from the shower.

The black building paper “Jumbotex” is a water resistant barrier, on top of which I put 1/4″ thick strips of wood. The strips space the siding away so that there’s an air gap. This is supposed to help the siding last longer, as moisture doesn’t get trapped between the siding and the building paper.

Putting the siding up takes weeks, because we only manage to sand and paint a few boards every weekend. But it’s almost done. The next step is to use ‘Bondo’ to fill all the nail holes, dents, and scratches in the boards, sand them again, prime them again, and on to final painting!

The siding is up around the new window, and I’m just waiting for the other window to arrive. Above right, you can see the new window, and siding up and around it. On the right of the picture is a temporary piece of wood covering the hole for the missing window.

I’ve still got the scaffolding up on the back side of the laundry room, so need to finish up this wall.

A month or so ago, I reframed this wall. It’s been sitting that way since, so this weekend I finally cut out the plywood from the window openings, ready for the new windows (one is still not here). This will be the wall of the toilet room back here. Above left is a view from the inside, above right from the outside.

But the main activity: Creating a roof overhang so that when it rains, the wall gets a little protection. The wall used to line up directly with the edge of the roof. Sorry, didn’t catch a photo, but the photos above show halfway through.

I had to take up the roofing, back to the first roof joist inside. We’ve added “outriggers” that extend out and support a joist right at the outside edge. Then I had to replace the roof sheathing boards so that they extend out to the new overhang. In the photos above, we are half way done.

Not a big change, and a “real” builder wouldn’t even bother (in fact, when we hired a roofing contractor to do the main roof, they actually cut some of the overhangs off, much to my dismay). But it will make a big difference to the longevity of the wall. In all houses, especially wood, water is the enemy. Roofing handles water and weather much better than paint on wood. I think, also, many window and door manufacturers will not warranty it if there’s no overhang protecting the window or door.

Above left is after all the roof sheathing boards have been extended. I’m re-using old wood, so it’s covered in random paint. Above right, we’ve put back the roofing felt, and the shingles. We re-used the old ones, so it’s a bit of a patchwork. And since the roof is a bit wider, didn’t have quite enough. No worries. I’m planning to get this all re-roofed because the roof slope is actually too shallow for shingles (it leaks).

Here’s an exciting picture of the high energy walk mole is on with a+b. 😉