We’ve finished one whole side of the house, including the metal roof. It’s always a good feeling to tear down the scaffolding and reveal our handy work. Although with the corten weathering steel, we have to play the waiting game for the house to turn to that beautiful rust color and for our blue window trim to really pop.
A few details: While our material choices are pretty bold, we wanted our trim details to give a nod to tradition. For the window trim, we did a simple picture frame, but made sure to have a stool and apron on the bottom of the window. Before putting up the exposed trim, we used blocks of 1″ thick trex deckboard around the window that we butted the 7/8″ corrugated siding to. For the trex board that was below the window, we made sure to cut a bunch of kerfs on the side mounted to the house such that the drainage plane wasn’t impeded. We used a brown trex board that is barely noticeable right now as the siding is still silvery, but once the siding ages, you shouldn’t be able to make it out at all.
The actual window trim is pressure treated yellow pine that is treated with borate that we got from Nature Neutral. Our primary reason for choosing the borate treated instead of the normal pressure treated was not any environmental reason, but aesthetic. Normal pressure treated that is treated with heavy metals always has a dark greenish tint where as the borate maintains it’s natural yellowish, clear tone. Joey really wanted stained wood trim where you could still make out the wood grain. I was really hesitant because of maintenance issues, but the pressure treated solution along with a Sherwin Williams semi transparent deck stain has got me feeling pretty good. Throw that in with the trex blocks, the corten siding and the galvalume metal roof and we’ve got a shell that will be around for awhile.
One other play on a historic trim element: At the top of the house underneath the roofline, we ran a frieze board of 1 x 8 miratec trim. On top of that we nailed up a 1 x 4 miratec and a 1 x 2 miratec to give the feel of a cornice wrapping the house. We firred this off the house with the same trex deck boards such that the corten could slip behind it and our ugly cuts could be covered up.
The only last finishing touch is to build some window boxes, but that’s definitely way down the list of things to get done.