Lake Erie Cottage
We are about two weeks away from closing up our cottage for the season. This is our first year with the place and the closing / opening experience should be an interesting one. Fortunately, we are about 1 hour away from the property, so an emergency trip is not a big deal.
When searching on closing/winterizing advice, I came across a couple of terrific resources and felt the need to share. The first is from WikiHow.com and covers many aspects of a seasonal cottage and also discusses how to address a situation based on a cottage with the heat remaining on and the heat being turned off.
Our cottage has been seasonally occupied by the same family for more than 20 years. Needless to say, they have the winterizing process down pat. The prior owner was kind enough to provide us with about 4 pages of notes that discuss every aspect of the closing. In addition to that, I had him walk me through each process and videotaped the whole thing as a reference. There is something to be said for a visual cue. Our cottage has well water, so some of the aspects of dealing with the well pump were very specific to our system.
The next resource that I found incredibly useful is actually an iPad application from “Cottage Life” magazine. This is the Cottage Life Q&A app. The application isn’t just about winterizing. It covers hundreds of questions relating to a cottage. The questions are broken into categories and should provide any new cottage owner with a nice resource to call on.
If you are winterizing your own seasonal property we would love it if you could share some of your own tips in the comment section below.
How to install wood siding.
Installation of wood siding is foreign to most. With today’s building materials, traditional wood lap siding has gone by the wayside. The cost of lumber has skyrocketed in recent years. Because of that, vinyl became an easy alternative. Who can argue with the low maintenance. of a vinyl siding?
The need for wood siding will come into place if you have a traditional lap siding home and are putting on an addition, adding a window or door, or replacing rotting boards. The following are a few quick tips when installing your wood lap siding.
Get your caulk out. Unlike vinyl siding, wood siding will need a bit more attention paid to the weatherproofing. Wood siding will move a lot depending on the weather. Anything you can do to keep water away from wood will be well worth the effort.
- Wood siding at a window. I am going to assume (as many of the DIY shows do) that you have an easy transition here. Let’s look at a traditional window with a trim piece that is 5/4 lumber (true 1″ thickness). In this case, we are going to simply butt our wood siding up to the window trim. Be liberal with your caulk. If this is a patch job and you didn’t have the opportunity to weatherproof the window, be sure to lay a nice bead of caulk down where the window trim meets your sheathing. Your wood siding can set down into that wet bead of caulk. This will seal up the trim, and the end of your siding piece. Again, keep water out! You don’t always need to but the siding right against the window trim. A 1/8″ gap is acceptable as long as that gap is made water tight with caulk.
- Minimize the number of joints in your siding. A joint is an area where water can/will penetrate. Spend a couple extra bucks to have 16′ boards delivered rather than tossing 8 footers in your SUV. The clean, joint free, run is also more pleasing to the eye. If you do have a joint, be sure to stagger it. What I mean by that is that you should not have the joint from one row in close proximity to a joint from the row above or below. You will just give water a place to penetrate with ease. When you do have joints, I like to seal the end with a product suck as a water repellent, or even a caulk.
- Inside Corners: When doing an inside corner, the method that should be used is to install a corner piece that the siding can butt up against. Don’t attempt to do an inside miter. It won’t work out. Period. Use a square piece of 5/4 in your corner and but each run of siding up to that.
- Siding Outside corners (see the picture for details. Click picture for larger view): We decided to write this article due to the poor job done on an outside corner by someone working for us. Don’t ever just nail up your siding (without a miter or a corner board)! This looks horrible, is not water tight, will be a home for insects (bees) and will deteriorate quickly. When doing a corner, you can miter the joint. An outside corner miter needs to be precise and has a specific nailing pattern. It isn’t my favorite corner joint treatment, but it can provide a pretty amazing look if done very well. The typical method is to attach corner boards and then create butt joint as was done at window trim, or an inside corner. Your corner trim boards need to go up prior to your siding. I have seen some lay down the siding and then cover the corner with a trim board, filling the large gaps with caulk. Not a good method.
Install wood siding outside corner options
- One other thing to keep in mind is the nailing of your siding. When you lap each course, the nail from one row should fall just above the upper piece of the siding below. Take a look at the graphic for more. You should only be nailing through one course of the siding. This will allow for some natural movement rather than binding the siding down which can cause unwanted results such as cracking, binding, loosening of fasteners, etc.
Nailing of lap siding
Hope this helped with your lap siding job.
Wood siding how-to — Part B — Corner Details.
Talk about a fun project. What 8 year old wouldn’t want a skateboard ramp in his garage?
Nate's Skate Ramp
Nate's Garage Skateboard Ramp
You might think that is is crazy, but I would rather supervise my son’s reckless behavior than let it happen elsewhere. This project came about when my son become more interested in skating. We visited a couple of skate parks and found that the ramps were a ton of fun. A little dangerous, but fun.
I found a simple ramp plan at http://www.xtremeskater.com/ and decided to surprise my son on his birthday. I had enough material at a project house and put it together in a couple of hours. I surprised my son by bringing him to the project house and asking him to help uncover some material that was in the driveway. Boy was he surprised! He ran up to the top and hugged “his ramp”.
Material:
- 12 @ 2″x4″x8′
- 1 @ 4′x8′ 3/4″ plywood
- 1 @ 2′x4′ 3/4″ plywood
- 1 @ 4′x8′ 1/2″ plywood
Everyone asks about bending the ply. I probably could have done it over time by allowing the ply to get wet and using some weights for a week or two. I didn’t have the time so I simply made some kerf cuts about 1/3 of the way through the backside of the sheet and bent along those.
Finished project (prior to the upper railing and the decals and spray painted stencils):
Now that we have this, my son is asking when the other pieces for his skate park will be built.
We will be starting a new project in about two weeks. It is a home located in a great neighborhood within the Village of Lancaster. The location is fantastic, the house…. not so much. When buying a home to fix, that is what you want… The worst house on the best street.
This home is located in the Village of Lancaster (off Broadway) and is on a street that includes a mix of home styles. There are even a number of older 2 family homes. Our property was built in 1889 and that will have some challenges. There will be some interesting issues to address with a home that was built in 1889. The oldest property that I have worked on was about 1920.
This was a 2 family home until the prior owner got tired of tenants above him and closed off the upper unit. He pulled the kitchen and had it reassessed as a single family home. We are going to do a full conversion to a single family. This will provide some challenges, but I think we will be able to pull off a modern floor plan with some big changes. We are going to combine the current kitchen with a lower bedroom to provide a modern “open” design. After the redesign, we will end up with a 4BR (3up, 1 down), 2 Bathroom home with a modern eat in kitchen. There are 8 1/2′ ceilings on the first floor and this will compliment the open design.
Home renovation plan
There are a NUMBER of large issues with this renovation, not the least of which is the foundation work that is needed. This will be a big project, but I feel that we will be working with a great contractor who can get things done quickly and properly. They worked on our office renovation and we couldn’t have been more pleased with the work that was done there. They have a motto “We Show up, Finish Up, Clean Up and Don’t Screw Up”
There are a couple of major repairs needed before we can even get started making this property look nice. There is foundation work required and roof work required. There is water leaking now and that needs to be addressed right away. The foundation is a rubble style foundation and needs to be shored up prior to any major work.
Check back for more as we get into this project. We’ll include some pictures and video as we go along.
Just received another Overstock.com coupon code in the mail today. As always, I am happy to share:
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