#title “Operation Cover Up–The Sequel”

After much soul-searching, chasing moths out of my wallet, and other advanced avoidance techniques, we determined what we knew all along. The only right thing to side the utility room wall with was the round fishscale. There was just no getting around it. It adds interest to an otherwise boring feature (on an otherwise NOT boring house) and matches other details of the house.

This led to a series of what are no doubt, questionable events. Y’all might recall the “merchandise” acquired there.

Well, here, we put it to good use. It’s just possible we should have covered the wall in 10 dollar bills and given it a coat of poly and we may have come out ahead…but I guess it wouldn’t match the rest of the house. Maybe 100’s?

Careful measurement is the key here. You might notice the level leaning in the window in the picture below…but any of you that have worked on an old house know you must be very careful with the information it provides you…particularly on cosmetic stuff. Straight and plumb are not always the correct solution.

I expected this to take me a day…so of course, it took two!

Getting around the Water heater opening.

More careful measurement in laying these out is needed so that they line up when they reach over the water heater opening.

Carefully done so it lines up on the other side.

This is several hours work. We were dealing with temperatures only in the high 80’s (89!), but the humidity was only a couple points lower than the temperature and there was no breeze. Very stifling. It rained so much here last week that everything was damp. Even the discharge from the nail gun would produce a visible pressure wave. I could have cut the atmosphere with a knife, but I was afraid I’d poke a hole in it and it would burst like a water-balloon.

Half done.

It gets much harder from here…as more trips up the ladder are required.

Another shot

Everything lined up perfectly. This is MUCH harder than it looks. Remember that AC unit down the line there will vanish in favor of the original window someday soon.

Done. Much Harder than it looks.

They turned out gorgeous. I love the smell, and the color of newly cut cedar. It’ll almost be a shame to paint these.

It'll almost be a shame to paint these.

Everything lines up.

I need to add two pieces of trim…small 1/4 round type…and remove the extraneous wood…things…that are above the fish-scale touching the carport (the carport is subject for a completely different discussion). I also need to do the other side of the window, but that is waiting for me to finish the corner trim…which is waiting for me to actually install the durn French Doors.

The door is next weekend’s project!

The wide shot.

All of this trouble and expense may have been worth it. I only wasted two shingles in this entire process…bad cuts. Overall I am very pleased…

Deep down though…when it comes to finishing the other side of the window, despite buying extras, I expect I’ll be two shingles short!

Got some paint scraping to do…this entire side of the house…then a coat of oil-based primer…a marathon caulking session, then a finish coat and this will be lookin’ GOOD. Ur…um…well…after I replace the stairs, finish the deck, replace the AC with the original window, repair the other windows, re-glaze 240 pieces of glass, do something (I have yet to figure out what) about the carport, and…

But alas…the door’s missing and the old water heater blew a line. Priorities shift yet again! Bang! I’m off to other things. Sigh.

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

It’s like something right out of the seedy side of life. The kind of thing respectable (heh heh) people like me shouldn’t be involved in…

Yeah, we paid money…a great deal of it…to acquire the merchandise and have it shipped in from another country.

We then paid bribes (they prefer to call them “brokerage fees”) to unseen agents to get the stuff across the border unmolested.

Six boxes arrived scattered amongst other packages in a large truck…about eighteen kilos each, tightly wrapped in plastic to keep the scent contained. We quickly transferred them into the trunk of Crunchbird (Da Altima). More wouldn’t have been a good idea…with the weight the car would have sat low in the back, drawing suspicion. Besides, with any luck, this score would be enough for our needs.

A hundred-twenty kilos or so, stuffed in Da Altima

Soon we set off into the night, running the Texas back-roads to get to our drop-off point. As always, meticulous attention to the traffic laws is required. We don’t want to get pulled over after-all.

Finally, we arrive at the destination. Here, the boxes will be broken open and the contents separated…ultimately getting to its end use.

Quietly unloading the boxes from the car under the cover of darkness, I can smell the distinctive odor, even through the tight wrappings. I smile at the wife as I pull out a razor sharp knife. The wicked looking blade, ideally suited for the uses I put it to, gleams in the moonlight. “This could be it babe…let’s see if it was worth all the trouble we’ve been through.”

The smell becomes almost overwhelming when I slice open the plastic. Even before I open the box, I know…

Just slicing open the plastic...the scent hits with full force

“Ahhhh.” I sniff deeply. “That’s that good stuff for sure.”

I pull some of the merchandise out of the box…checking texture and consistency. “The shipment looks good. Maybe this will work out after-all.”

There's the stuff!

Oh yeah...the good stuff for sure!

Something illicit? Not at all…these are the “fancy cut butt shingles” for the utility room wall. I love the smell of newly cut cedar. I could not find anybody in the US that still makes them…and had to import these from Canada. Everybody domestic wanted to sell me vinyl or Hardee board.

More on this project here.

We paid over $30 in “brokerage fees” in order to pay $4 in customs charges.

For some reason I feel I need a shower…

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

Y’all may recall the utility room wall…badly constructed and falling out of this otherwise VERY solid house…that we had to rebuild. We are relocating the window and door whilst we are at it. Linky-thing

Purists will be overjoyed that we are using the original window…which is circa 1900 or so but NOT original to this house…it was added sometime in the 50’s. The French doors are also the same age. We have no idea where they originally were.

Anyway….

Well, we didn’t get the French Doors mounted this weekend…something about 5 inches of rain AND a stew cook-off at the fairgrounds (I *think* I managed to sample 18 of 28 stews…I was going for all of them…but they were ALL so good and nobody understood the meaning of the word (just a smidgen!).

18 bowls of stew. *Burp*.

One of something like 28 outstanding stews!

Oh…yeah. Work I was supposed to be doing.

We have the deck framing up (not entirely decked), the utility room wall rebuilt, the window installed, the water heater enclosure installed, the lower detail done, and the sheathing up. You can clearly see where the French doors are going…there is of course, still trim/framing to be done above those. Hopefully…this coming weekend!

The new doorway

This stairway will be replaced with one that mates to the deck and runs down the side of the house (as opposed to “out” like this one). In the mean time, we can still use it to step over to the partially decked deck.

The stairway will be replaced with one going down against the wall.

You can see in the picture below…the lower detail (the vertical T&G under the window) matches the detail under the sunroom windows. I’ve mentioned before that the AC hanging out there will be replaced with the original window as we go along.

North view

Anyway, back to this picture…y’all wanna guess what I’m covering the sheathing with? Huh? Huh? Wanna guess?

Sheathing

Hint…there are none to be had in Texas at any price…I ended up ordering cedar ones out of Canada…or I could have driven to Louisiana and gotten them in Cypress. BOTH, my theory says, are simply a thin wood veneer over solid gold…as that is how these things are priced.

Vinyl or hardeeboard versions of them could be had at a fraction of the price…but I just *couldn’t*…not on *this* house…maybe if they were WAY up on the top of the house…but even then…the texture and minor inconsistencies of the real thing…I just…

*SOB/snif*

Ah well…it’s only money right?

Oh…yeah…the covering…well, “fancy-butt round cut cedar shakes”. What I call “fishscale”, but in the round pattern (since “fishscale is a fancy-butt cut in a different pattern…just to confuse things)

Anyway, doing it this way, it will match the front porch details and make an otherwise boring wall more interesting…it will be the coloring of the fishscale elsewhere on the house. (like this pic below):

They will be the color and arrangement of these fishscales

That’s the color scheme…well…assuming I can still afford the paint…

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer