One of the latest projects has been the exterior trim. Two weeks ago I purchased 50 or 60 rough sawn cypress boards from Forest Products Associates here in Greenfield. I recently learned that cypress holds up very well to the weather, and takes paint better than western red cedar. I brought the boards to a local mill (Hall Tavern Farm in Charlemont) to be planed. We will be using 1×4 for the windows, 1×6 for the corner and frieze boards (goes under neath the soffit), and 2×10 for the water table (goes around the foundation). We already chose a dark red for our trim, which can be seen on our fascia board (goes at the face of the soffit), but Hannah and I decided to have white window trim. The red will be carried down in the corner, frieze, and water table boards. I also decided to use a solid stain for the window trim–that way we can be a little more lazy about repainting.
We had two good days of weather at the beginning of this past week and we just finished the first coat. Before we could begin we needed to make figure out the work flow, make drying racks, and most importantly re-saw quite a number of boards into the widths we needed.
A big thank you to Dan! We wouldn’t have been able to get this one all done before the weather without you. Thank you to Beth for helping get the paint on.
Here Dan and I are rabbetting a groove on the edge of the corner trim boards. The groove allows the siding to tuck behind the trim. This prevents water from getting behind the siding, and it creates a better looking connection.
Sending 16 foot long boards through a table saw is tricky. One person feeds, another receives. Both people need to stay focused–little movements left, right, up, or down can cause the cut to go in the wrong direction or the have the wrong depth. To help us out we used three feather-boards to push the board up against the fence and down against the table. In retrospect, this setup could have been improved. Here the dado blade is on the opposite side of the board as the fence. If it was on the same side, the feather-board pushing down, could have been pushing the feather-board onto the blade.
Dan helping to paint trim boards
For the 1×4 window trim we had a vertical drying rack on the porch. Having all the boards gave a neat louvered effect to the porch. Dan is in the background painting.
For our larger boards, we had to have a horizontal drying rack. Erik had left us with some 14″ long timberloks which served to keep the wide boards vertical.
Over the past couple of days, Adam assembled the window trim. We also rabbeted a groove around the sides except for the top.
Here is the finished product. As you can see the siding dives behind the trim creating water secure and visually appealing connection.
Design & Construction of Spartan & Hannah's Home 