For us, it’s always a milestone when we can pack up the scaffolding and haul it away from the job site. It was a beautiful day to wrap up the siding on Monday. Today it rained and we worked on mosaic tile in the bathrooms.

Quickly on the siding: I’d have to say one of the most important things to me is building a house that will last and will require minimal maintenance.  We keep evolving and improving, but I’m really happy with the exterior trim detailing for this reason.

Besides using a prepainted hardiplank that has the paint baked on for maximum durability, we’ve moved away from any sort of painted trim on the corners, fascia, soffit ect. All the trim is galvalume that we get bent specifically for the house. I like the lines it creates and I also like the bursts of cedar that add some warmth.

The big thing to note is that we put all the siding on firring strips. We started doing this just with porch ledgers as I had read and witnessed how that starts to block water running down and rot away. So, by getting the siding off the house with an air gap it just gives me tremendous peace of mind that no moisture is going to collect leading to mold or rot.

One happy accident we learned is that the hardiplank actually warms a lot in the sun and heats up that air gap behind the siding creating a process of convection. So, we’ve started leaving a little gap at the top for the hot air to escape.

I’m a little hesitant to show a picture of the front of the house as it is missing the front porch, which we have to wait to build until after final grade. I think the porch will add a lot of dimension to the front elevation and tie a bunch of elements together.