Finished Siding and More Projects

8 January 2012
2:31 PM

Sunrise at	10:43 AM	in direction	149°	South-southeast
Sunset at	3:12 PM	in direction	211°	South-southwest

Duration of day: 4 hours, 28 minutes (4 minutes, 44 seconds longer than yesterday)

I am including three shots of the siding and one of the interior that is the project for this year.  I don't know that we will be able to afford doing both the interior and the ground floor of the house this year.  Also, I like the way the back of the house looks so much, I want to place the same siding on the front (without adding a layer of the foam insulation).

Corner view of the back of the house

This is the same view that I showed yesterday when it was still a wonderful blue rigid foam.  We altered the direction of the corrugation pattern around the walls and doors.  We left the window area with just one inch of foam, rather than the two inches used every where else on the wall surface. Then we stained pine for the trim.

View of the house from the back yard

The above shot is from the back yard. It shows the corrugated steel on the main level with the original siding in place on the top level.  It also shows the effects of continuing snow accumulation on the birch trees in the back yard.  We live in a post card world here in Alaska - even though cold, always beautiful.

View of the front with ground level remaining

I have this idea that I'd like to extend the stone around the side of the house.  Our contractor that did the siding gave us the name of the man who most likely did the rock facing.  I thought if we brought the rock back, at least up to the stairs down to the basement apartment, the house would have less fragmentation for different textures. that is the same reason I want to put the siding up the front of the house to second level.

View of the interior needing to be finished, plastered, and paint.

So, the most pressing, is to complete the inside.  That is the project that will be done this year, before the siding on the ground level, front of the main level, and the siding for the ground level.


So, as you see, we have a warmer, more comfortable home, but we also created many projects in the process - all requiring more money, well beyond the $4000 reimbursed by the State of Alaska.  We will save the receipts for when we sell the house as capital improvements.  We will have recouped the costs in six years, in any case, based on energy savings, so in the long run, it is worth it.