Work Continues on the Exterior with some minor exceptions...

What you are looking at here is a nail hole in a half inch copper water supply line.  It seems the "Boss" accidentally nailed this line while installing the tongue and groove in the half bath on the first floor.  The interesting thing is that it didn't leak for several weeks.  When the guest bath on the second floor (which shares this water line) was made operational the pressure changes in the line caused just enough vibration to cause this leak to show up.

Here is the section of pipe that was removed and replaced.  The small piece (about 1" by 3") of tongue and groove near the floor was the small section that the "Boss" nailed into the pipe.  Total time to fix this "accident" was about an hour.

With the Boss's nailing problem fixed we continued finishing the siding on this side of the garage.  Since the Monsoons are on the way we need to get all the siding complete now.

Next we moved to the front and completed both the soffit and siding on the third and last dormer. This dormer is slightly smaller than the previous two and was not all that time consuming to finish.

With the dormer complete we started work on the faux barn door on the front of the garage.  The outside frame was made by cutting a 6x6 beam in half length ways. This allows the frame to stand out from the siding by about an inch and a half.  Then an inside framework was built using 2x6 lumber.  This gives the door a realistic look where everything isn't all the same and the door is actually recessed slightly from the outside frame.

Here you can see the inside frame almost complete.  The corners were mitered for a finished look.

The final touch for the inside frame was to make sure the horizontal framework was level.  This was important because if these were off all the rest of the work would be much more difficult and the doors wouldn't look right when they were done.

Here is the completed barn door.  Wrought iron hinges were added and a couple of matching handles will be added once we can find them.  Later a ramp will be built up to the base of the door which will add to the realism.

We continued our work around the garage and began trimming out the garage doors.  With the trim work done we continued with the log siding.

This side of the garage took almost an entire week to complete.  Remember those doors are 18' long and we had to do the soffit and trim out the electrical service box as well.  Motion sensitive security lights were added above each door as an added layer of protection

Now that all the siding is complete it 's time to get start the installation of the porch decking.  These boards are all 1 inch think pressure treated deck boards and are screwed to the floor joists using exterior deck screws.

It's very important to stagger the joints when installing decking.  Not only does it add strength but it looks a whole lot better as well.

The back porch decking is now complete.  Railings and balusters will be added later along with stairs down to the back yard.

A view from the other direction.  This porch is 11' x 40' and took 74 14' deck boards to complete.

With the back porch decking complete we turned our attention to the front porch.  The front porch begins by the kitchen and works its way around the front of the house and wraps around the other side and ends at the master bathroom.  There are three 90 degree corners on this porch and because we wanted a custom look we added bracing to each corner to allow us to use 45 degree corners instead of running the boards straight to the end.

Here is the only inside corner completed.  The two outside corners were a bit more complicated since the angles weren't an even 45 degrees.  The front section of the porch is 8' wide while the rest of the front porch is only 7' wide.  This difference in width meant that the outside corners were closer to 40 degrees on one side and 50 degrees on the other.  This is not that big of a deal since we designed it this way.  We felt that we wanted a bit more room in areas of the porch that will be used for seating so the front was designed a little wider than sections that will generally only have foot traffic.

This is the wider section of the front porch.

It took 5 days for the two of us to complete the front porch.  The nice part is that with this porch decking now complete 99% of the "construction" is now done.  All that's really left as far as building stuff is concerned is completing the interior trim and the front and rear porch railings and balusters.

This is the narrower section of the front porch by the kitchen door.  Stairs will be built directly in front of the door later.

This is the view from the kitchen door towards the front of the house.  Make no mistake about it, this is a large porch.  We're not complaining since we designed it that way but both the "Boss" and I sunburn very easily and we built the house in a high UV environment large covered porches were a must.  They also have the added benefit of providing shade to all but one of the large exterior windows.  This keeps our air conditioning bills lower.

That's it for this month.  The next update won't be till the end of September.  We will be a bit busy over the next month attending Kuhns Bros. Log Home Representative School and we'll be taking some time off to visit with friends.  Work will continue in early September on the porch railings, stairs and balusters as well as starting some of the finish work inside.

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