Labor of Love?

We put our last piece of siding up over Labor Day weekend! It’s been a long time coming.

Looking at back at Labor Day 2021, we were here…

We were energetic, full of gumption and had no cats.

By the following summer, the exterior structure was complete and ready for siding. We got 5 crates of zinc panels and 1 crate of kittens.

By Labor Day 2022, we had installed about 1/5 of the panels on the building. The North face was done!

However, our energy was already beginning to wain. The Tyvek wrapping was fading in the sun. Our cats were still small enough to share a chair. And we still had a lot of panels left.

By winter, we were more than halfway done. The majority of the West and South sides were complete.

It was time to pack up for winter. We attempted to seal the 300 sq-ft hole where the big garage door goes (see above) since the other garage door was finally installed and operable (see below).

We consolidated the remaining panels into two large crates. Although we didn’t work on the siding for the following six months, we certainly did not forget about it. We moved the giant crates around the shop at least a dozen times.

By this summer, the Tyvek was completely bleached but still holding up. The cats grew too big to share a chair but sometimes do anyway for old times sake. Sam and I regained a little steam and decided it was time to get back into siding.

Without help this summer, it was just Sam and me. Sam came up with a method to use the loader as another set of hands.

This enabled the two of us to install about 15 panels in a half day. We worked many half days…

Until the East side was complete!

Then we installed the final man-door on the West side. That entry had been getting the most use and abuse, so we kept the temporary door as long as possible. I was sad to see it go, as it had a fun latch I grew accustomed to.

With the new door in place, we could install the final 16 panels around it. Sam and I slowly chipped away at them until Jackson showed up for Labor Day! Labor Day is for working hard over a long weekend, right?

The last panel was tricky since it had to fit over a vent.

Sam finished riveting the trim pieces around the windows.

502 panels, a few hundred trim parts, many buckets of screws, and who knows how many pairs of torn gloves (from peeling the film off panels) later…

We are done!

As far as exterior work, we just have the giant shop door to build and all of the soffit panels to install, but we won’t worry about those just yet.

Cheers to the siding for now!