Tonight I finally completed the garage siding. My father Doug gave up two of his weekends helping me and we had all the walls done. This weekend my dad was out of town, but I rented some scaffolding and hired Bernardo from the Home Depot parking lot and we got the gables all sided.
The scaffolding was definitely the right way to go. Hefting those heavy pieces of siding up and down on ladders would have been exhausting as well as pretty dangerous. The angle cuts are harder than they seem like they should be, even with a template. So most boards in the gables require at least a couple of trips up and and down the ladder/scaffolding to get the fit just right.
Carol bought quart cans of five different paint colors today. We've put off the decision as long as we can. We've been thinking barn red with white trim (for both the garage and the house), but recently Carol saw a house nearby that is navy blue with white trim. We both like it. Today Carol bought three reds and two blues and painted patches on the garage and the house so we can see them in different lighting. We're both liking the darker, duskier blue she chose. An advantage of blue is that it is closer to the existing house color. We can already tell that red is going to take several coats to cover the existing turquoise.
Carol, artist that she is, has a very finely tuned eye for color. We've been trying to identify exactly the right red. Many reds are too orange, too pink, or too blue.
I'm switching jobs after this week. Currently my plan is to take the first week of October off and get the garage painted. The weather is looking amenable right now, but long range forecasts are pretty likely to change. If the weather holds and I'm feeling energetic, I'll paint the house at the same time.
I'm very excited to have the siding complete. Now the garage really looks like a completed building.
