We also didn’t choose brick because the footings weren’t wide enough to support the weight.
That does narrow down our choices. Because this is our retirement home, we needed something that wouldn’t require constant maintenance. Haydn's days of climbing ladders are numbered and for me to climb them is not an option after my experience of fracturing my wrist because of an unsecured ladder.
"Vinyl is Final!" or so the salesmen claim. We did have vinyl siding at our house in London. That house had architectural interest added with panels of white stucco. There was one panel of siding at the back that needed attendance over the period we lived there—it had been installed incorrectly.
We considered vertical vinyl siding, but couldn’t find anything we liked. Nor could we locate any horizontally applications that satisfied the designer’s concept. We attended quite a few home shows and all the clad was a boring repetition of each other's booths. I turned to the Internet to find some siding that was pleasing.
Gentek Canada came up. Their line of Northern Forest siding was perfect for our application. The profile we chose was the double 5”
It’s maintenance free, and is guaranteed for 40 years.
The colour we picked was Willow.
It isn't apparent from that small two-dimensional sample, but it has black, dark to light gray and white mixed in with the predominate greenish-gray background. Some of the other colors are raised, giving the siding the most natural look to wood we’d ever seen in a vinyl product. The colour isn't depicted accurately; it has more green, and brown muted with gray.
There was a dealer for it in Sarnia, which is within a one hour drive from us. It looked even better when we saw the samples that I had seen on the Internet. It comes in 10’ lengths and would require a flat-bed trailer when it was ready for pickup. There are numerous channel mouldings, J, D and special window finishing mouldings as well as starter strips. The lead time was six weeks.
The advance time was just enough for us to finish more of the inside before starting the exterior siding. We gave our notice at our apartment and knew when we moved into the house, it wouldn’t be complete. We’re accustomed to roughing it. We have moved into a couple of houses that we've built and finished them while living there.
The least finished was the house we built overlooking a small inland lake. I slept in the unfinished living room on a 5 foot long vinyl chesterfield with a pig trough we used to mix cement for the three-storey fireplace we were building. No one else would have fitted on it. One night I awoke with a mouse just inches from my face. Yes, I screamed and woke up both Haydn & Christine from their sound sleeps. The two of them were sleeping in the only finished room in the house. Amazing, how quickly that changed! :)
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Did I tell you that when we sold our house in London, I had to call the City of London Planning Department to get a final inspection? We had lived there for thirteen years and didn’t have an occupancy permit. The department went bananas when I called! Turned out, they’d lost our file and that was the reason we’d hadn’t been kicked out. I had the original permit and a list of deficiencies from the last inspection we had received. A building inspector was at my door that afternoon to verify we actually had an approved permit. He verified the list of deficiencies and said we had 30 days to complete them or we would be evicted.
It wasn’t a cheap permit to obtain. There was an additional $3,500 fee for City parkland development we had to pay beyond the normal square footage cost for permits that are used in calculations for building permits. Lucky that I kept the permit and the list over a thirteen-year period.
We were already in receipt of an offer on our house that we had accepted, and the City talking tough was amusing. The City of London building inspectors weren't at all helpful of any of the places we've built. Our first house had been in London. The only labour we expended on our first home was painting on the inside and some staining of the cedar on the outside. We had used our labour to bring down the cost of the building of it. We also added our own deck at the back and did our own landscaping. Apart from that, it was erected and built by a general contractor. The mortgage that was arranged on that house was a Canadian Mortgage & Housing Corporation (CMHC) for $12,600 amortized over 25 years. The terms were fixed, 6 1/4%. Principle/Interest/and Taxes (PIT) was $105/month. We weren't sure we'd be able to make those huge payments! :) The year was 1962. The lot was pie-shaped, 150' at the front, 180' long and 10' at the back. It bordered on a schoolyard in an up-scale neighbourhood. Housing was much more affordable for first-time buyers in the 60's. General contractors in cities were more approachable for couples that wanted to do some of their own work. But we never did experience any difficulties making arrangements to be our own contractor. The evolution of building houses did codify into rules and regulations that cities adopted. Today, they can be daunting for an inexperienced person to understand and perform up to their standards. Building codes do protect owners from shoddy workmanship. There is little variance from one city to another. Houses built in rural areas are also built under the code, but the inspectors in those areas are more willing to extend assistance to owners who are doing it themselves.
We had built two houses in rural communities—the inspectors there gave us advice about the interpretation of building codes and offered assistance when we found the restrictions confusing. The City inspectors, when asked a question would just say, “Buy a code book, study it, and let me know when you’re ready for my inspection.” That was the extent of their assistance! Ever read a building code book? :) Rural and City inspectors have no resemblance to each other.
I would strongly advise anyone who is thinking about building their own house not to attempt it in an urban setting unless you’re thoroughly conversant with building codes and won’t need any guidance.
We did finish the items to the inspector’s satisfaction and got our occupancy permit 30 days before the new owners took possession of it. How very fortunate we were that the unfriendly City lost our file. :)
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Vinyl siding is easy to cut including the mouldings and the pieces that finish the corners. And like roofing, you start with a starter strip and work up. Initially there are no ladders, but it takes two people to put the siding on because of its 10’ length. Finishing strips around windows do have to be put in place before the siding butts up to them and that does take considerable fitting and cutting time to accomplish. We were very careful to ensure there were no leaks between the siding and the windows and that the siding had room to breathe, expand and contract in hot and cold temperatures. We had placed scaffolding around the house and it wasn’t as frightening to be on that structural support as it is on ladders.
It took the two of us a little more than two weeks to put up all the siding, soffits and fascia. Here’s a no-nonsense article about How to install Vinyl Siding.
We had used the Gentek vinyl soffits, but elected to use aluminium for the fascia. We changed the colour from willow to white for those two components to add accent to the house. The reason it took so long to finish that job was because we had large overhangs both at the front and at the back and a porch that had to have soffits fitted. There was a great deal of cutting, especially for the underside of the porch. Since we planned to spend considerable time sitting on the veranda, it had to be perfect. Haydn, with his critical eye and his need to have everything square and fit precisely, would have driven himself nuts if he had to look at errors we made during that installation. Had it not been for the overhangs and the porch, we could have been finished in one week.
It does help if you’re working with someone who has had experience putting siding up and has high standards about the workmanship. He will not accept sloppy work either from himself or from me. As I’ve said before, he’s like that with everything he does and I share that work ethic and take pride in what I do.
My appreciation for the superiority of natural products has been gradual over many years of living with a wide variety of products. Natural products have a patina and a richness that so far hasn't been achieved with mass-produced technology. It's not exclusive to colour that appeals to the eye, touch them, and they are gentler to the hand or in the case of fieldstone, they're sharp and very rough to the touch. The roughness is indicative of their natural environment which is what you transplant when you use them. Canadian Shield and its resulting northern majesty was wrought from mountains that were violently thrust up from evolutionary times. Man-made products don't achieve what nature does. Real granite does speak its environment, artificial ones don't. Nature also has the ability to achieve softness that can't be duplicated. How effective are man-made products at duplicating nature? Plastics and vinyls aren't capable of capturing colour, feel, smell, taste, sound, and the 6th ... the indefinable connection we feel with natural objects. Industry does try to compete, but it's a failure. Show me a staircase that's made from walnut and cherry and compare it to any man-made product and you'll realize the former is far superior to the latter.
But in our case, we did have to compromise on the selection of some of the products that went into the house because of longevity and our inability to be able to maintain them. We did have a house that had British Columbia cedar siding on the upper floor. It was used for architectural adornment under/above the windows and on the back of the house. But the constant need to keep it varnished to prevent it from discolouring is an enormous task that we now weren’t able to do at our age. Reality does play a factor in what it is you choose to use for your home. Cost is another factor that has to be considered. If it’s not within your budget, it’s wiser to choose something that will last over natural products. We always will pick natural products when it’s within our budget and meets with our ability to maintain it—very few things reign above them.
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What a fantastic experience it was for us when it was all done!
All that remained to be finished to the exterior was the painting of the garage and front doors and to finish the gables at the front.
We declined to use the vinyl products that Gentek had for sale. Half-round, restoration-type, Victorian vinyl products do look well on some houses,
but we had some other ideas and that wasn't quite the look we we had in mind. Copper for those areas was a option, as well as half-round or octagon-cut, custom, cedar shakes. We elected to leave that area ‘til another time. Copper would achieve a greenish patina in time that is very pleasing to the eye. Cedar shakes weather and turn silvery when they are untreated.
We needed more time to ruminate ... didn't really know what we wanted to put there, but our house did need something added to give it interest and individuality that wasn't on the plans. Ponder, ponder, ponder ... I could achieve it with a distinctive garden; Haydn needed to add his mark on it that said, "This is Haydn's house!"
Our moving date into the house was fast approaching and we had appliances to install and at least one bathroom had to be complete before we moved in. We were prepared to live without kitchen cabinets, counters and rooms that weren’t finished with the exception of the master bedroom. That had to be painted, carpets installed and furniture in place.
We do not install carpets—that’s the one job we leave to professionals. Tried only once to install it ourselves—the result was totally unsatisfactory and we ripped it up and had professionals replace the carpet we had bought and installed. One of the reasons could have been Haydn’s knees? Even as a young man, his knees were the weakest part of his body. He wasn’t able to exert enough thrust on the kicker that tightens the rugs. We don’t really know, but we just aren’t able to install carpets that look like they weren’t installed by amateurs. That neither Haydn nor I can live with on a long-term basis.
Next chapter. Finishing the master bedroom and one bathroom.
