The Exterior

It's been two months since the last entry. And a year since this Monster was created! Wow, that's a long time.
Well, we've been making headway towards putting Stucco on the building. The first step is 2 layers of builders paper, which is a lot like roofing underlayment. It comes in a two layer roll, so that part is easy. It's attached with a normal staple gun, nothing fancy.
This transformed it from a wood "under construction" look to a more finished look. Dramatic, for us, and a nice change. I'm sure the neighbors like to see progress.

Once the paper is up, then you install flashing over the doors and windows. Finally it's time for Lath. That'a an expanded metal sheet nailed every 6 inches.The Stucco is applied over this. I'm getting Stucco estimates now. The Lath requires its own inspection (which passed by the way.) The Stucco has to be up before I can put up a gutter in the back and the deck on the roof. Although I'm thinking I can start doing some of the deck framing without a finished Stucco exterior. I'll figure that part out soon enough.
I thought I'd save some money doing the Lath work, but honestly I think I'll be lucky to get anything beyond the material cost out of that job. I did what I thought was correct, which it is, however the Stucco guys usually use a chicken wire product instead that is faster and cheaper. What I have done is create a rock solid base for the cement version of Stucco. They make modern Stucco materials, but we're matching the house so the regular stuff is fine.

Also put up a new front porch address post! I mounted the address number to an acrylic sheet that I used my random orbital sander on the back side for a frosted look. The acrylic now matches the garage doors and is also lighted at night with a low voltage landscape light that helps the number visibility when it's dark!
Besides all this fun(!) I leveled the back yard, trenched it and put in a sprinkler system. As soon as I can, there will be some 'soil improvement' tilled into the mostly clay yard. Any extra dirt I have is going into the back side of the retaining walls on each side of the driveway.
​I expect that the next blog entry will feature new Stucco!
Never a dull moment!

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