Wrestling with Siding

With the weather warming up but not quite hot, it's the perfect time to get things done outside, not that there's a shortage of things that need to be done. One issue that's been eating at me for the past two years are the clapboards on the backside of the house. The house gets southern exposure back there and subsequently, a lot of sun. You don't realize how much damage the sun does, but in combination with the brutal winters, it can really take a toll on wood. About 4 years ago I re-painted the siding and it looked pretty good at the time, but truth be told, I took the easy way and paid the price. I hand my head to my Mentor and the Amazing PR Man who would never take shortcuts and would do it right the first time.

The problem I ran into was that the boards back there were on the older side and the paint was chipping off of them. Rather than do things right, which would include replacing the warped boards and scraping off the old paint, I took the lazy man's approach and simply painted over them. At first glance it looked okay, but over time my laziness caught up to me and began to haunt me. Now I didn't realize this, being a real-man in training and all, but when you paint over paint that's peeling off, it simply peels off some more. Sure enough, over the last few years, the fresh paint that I put on was simply peeling off with the old. It looked terrible and was bugging the heck out of me, and we all know the sure fire way to address things that bug you is to simply deal with it. I guess I have a high tolerance for things that bug me because it took a few years.

Also, the old boards that I tried to ignore were simply getting older (funny how that works) and more warped, to the point where they weren't really serving their purpose anymore. Several of the boards were cracking and bending and really needed replacing. They, too, looked terrible.

So, I decided to take action and work on them. The funny thing about clapboards, at least when I'm working with them, is that when you try to replace one or two, it ends up being at least twice that many because others crack and break. It's incredibly frustrating, and I found myself replacing more than I anticipated. In fact, I created my own clapboard hell because after I'd finished with my initial project, I went ahead and tried to replace some others and ended up cracking several rows above it. So many, in fact, that I ran out of clapboards and had to make a run to LaValley's to get more. Total bummer.

In the end it's a good thing that these boards are being replaced, it's just a pain having to actually do the work. Then again, what should one expect when one's a real man in training? Truth be told I don't mind doing siding, and I would even go as far as to say that I like it, it's just hard finding the time, although a real man in training never whines about these sort of things.

Until the next time, thanks for reading, and thanks to Leonid Notax for the pic.