Neat and Trim

Today was a bit obscure, as work days go.

We went to Pagano's first thing, and got some paintable latex caulk, plus paint for the stairs (which are peeling) plus an explanation for why the stairs are peeling (apparently you don't prime walking surfaces before painting them because of differential movement between primer and the main paint layer). We also bought a new caulk gun, which I will talk about later because it is honestly one of the best tools ever to come into my life.

Then we came home and Noel added some bits of siding to various parts of the chicken house while I caulked everywhere with the new caulk gun (it deserves a post of its own).

When we were done, it looked like this:

Some of those very bold white lines are the bad caulk we got last week, which is really sealant and not quite the right thing for what I wanted to do. It goes on thick and opaque and is hard to hand-tool, and the stuff we wanted goes on thin and can almost disappear into the cracks with the wipe of a finger.

Anyway, it's all caulked, mostly, and we will deal with the colour and striping issue at some other time.

With caulk applied, we spent another chunk of time and did this:

So, of two doors and two (current) windows, we got half done. There's also trim for the roof, and trim to go up the corners. But the window we did get done looks awesome, and the door not so bad. It's a little narrow, but I think the scale will be just fine when it's all done.

And I'll also have to caulk the whole thing again, around the edges of the trim this time. Fun!

The nice thing about the cheap vinyl wood composite molding we got is that it has a plain side. Usually that sort of thing has a terrible fake wood grain and you just have to grit your teeth and bear it, but this one has wood grain on only one side, so we could just put that side down and have a plain trim. Since I hate things that pretend to be what they are not (this has been my major qualm about composite decking), this makes me happy.

Technorati Tags: carpentry, caulk, construction, shed

posted by ayse on 09/21/08