Hardie Board: How we decided on our siding

When choosing building materials, the size of your house can be a large factor in your decision. The larger the house, the more materials you need and the more money your renovation will cost you. In our case, our house is small and the shape is favorable for building materials. A rectangle. A perfect rectangle. No architectural detail, no cuts, no butts, no alligator...okay I'm done.

When driving around our town there is A LOT of new construction happening at the moment. Every corner of downtown seems to be a new-build and the style is changing from the forever-loved stucco Mediterranean style that Floridians gravitate toward (think stucco, terracotta color and lots of brushed bronze metal) to a more relaxed British West Indies look. I. Am. Loving. It.

These photos are actually of a house in our town.

Our house pretty much decided for us that we needed a total overhaul of the exterior. For lack of a better phrase, it was throwing up it's siding on to the ground below. Like, we had chunks of siding missing and exposed wood just hanging out like a rogue bra strap. But worse. Aside from the color that we weren't too fond of, the siding was in dire condition. It was wood, very thin and splintering and falling apart. The previous siding had a vertical pattern to it (it came in sheets with the grain running vertically) and the windows had a simple trim around some of them.

We knew that we wanted to use James Hardie material for the side of the house and we decided on the horizontal lap siding.

I loved the look but more importantly, I loved that it was completely different than the previous siding. Key word here: different.

So I proceeded to pin roughly 10,000 images of James Hardie horizontal lap siding and stalk all of the homes within a 20 mile radius of our house with horizontal lap siding and planned every aspect of the exterior renovation around this horizontal lap siding. You see where this is going, don't you?

We couldn't use the horizontal lap siding.

After much deliberation it was decided that our little minty house on the hill wasn't "square enough" for us to run horizontal siding. Basically, the house had settled a bit on to one side and the horizontal siding would have made this too obvious We're talking a 3-4 inch difference from one end of the house to the other which could potentially be noticeable and drive an OCD person (cough: cough: ME) certifiably insane.

So. Plan #2 which I had all lined up and ready to go. Oh wait, that's a lie. I was relying on Plan #1 working and hadn't given anything else even a flutter of my beautifully long (lie) eyelashes. What did I do, you ask? I spent the next 3 days pinning 10,000 photos and driving around town like a crazed maniac looking at other options.

We knew a few things:

1. We still definitely wanted to use James Hardie siding. I love it's look and it lasts for a lifetime. It is made from fiber cement, has a beautiful finish and wears well for years and years.
2. We wanted a "coastal cottage" look.
3. We wanted to be able to paint it ourselves (you can get James Hardie siding pre-primed but your color choices are limited).

So, remember how I said I just wanted the siding to be totally different? Yeah, well...we chose a vertical siding AND I COULDN'T BE MORE OBSESSED.

It is actually a lot different than what we had.

It is technically called "Board and Batten" and is really a super clean and classic look.

You start with large sheets of Hardie Board (we chose a smooth texture as opposed to a Cedar Mill texture which mimics wood) and then you add the "battens". You choose the spacing and it is totally up to you how close or far apart you place them. We chose our battens to be two feet apart and we didn't worry about how they lined up with the windows.

James Hardie pre-primed products come in a yellow color which makes it all the more exciting when you paint it!

My Dad looking super thrilled after cutting around my oval window!

James Hardie is definitely not the cheapest building material around. For a house our size it was still a sizable part of our exterior renovation expenditure. Just to give you an idea, the battens alone cost us over $1,000 and we still had trim and the actual siding as well.

So while the boys applied the Hardie Board to the side of the house, I caulked.

Every. Single. Seam. And. Nail. Hole.

It took me dayssssss. Upon days upon days.

It was actually enjoyable. My fingers bled, yes, but I enjoy mundane tasks that I can make perfect. And caulking is definitely one of those tasks. Every batten, piece of trim and siding seam had to be filled with caulked and then wiped down. I was the lone caulker and my Dad gave me a nickname that I won't mention on this blog. Hint: it started with "Caulk" and ended with a word that rhymes with witch. You do the math. I was proud of my title. I can now walk around the house and see all of my beautiful handy-work.

Stay tuned for the next post of our surprise architectural detail that I have dubbed "The Home Maker" because it has quite literally Made Our Home Amazing. Thanks to Plan #1 (Horizontal Lap Siding) not working out, we have an even more amazing outcome thanks to another amazing James Hardie product!

Before Photos

Because everyone loves some good befores, am I right?

I will start with the exterior because that is what we are tackling first. Once we're signed off on the exterior renovations, I'll show you some photos of the inside!

This is a photo of the front of the house. Like I said, "Little Minty". Pretty aptly named, huh? Oh and plus a coordinating blue door just for kicks! :gag: You'll notice in the photo that the mint-colored siding goes down further on one side of the house. This is because the side to the left of the door used to be a carport but the original owners enclosed it and made an additional bedroom inside of the house. It would be nice to have a place to pull a car undercover but that added square footage is more important! Both of the front windows are new-ish (added during the carport renovation) so they are 2 of the 4 windows that we are keeping; the rest have been replaced. Oh, and that octagon window aka The Bane of My Existence is already gone. Much to everyone's dismay because apparently I am the only person who HATED it. It just screamed 1983 to me and gave me nightmares. Was so excited to see that little guy go!

The sides and rear will see the most dramatic changes with the addition and replacement of windows in very different dimensions than the existing ones. This photo shows the side of the house with two of the old windows. We have replaced the two exisiting windows with long, narrow (2x6) Hurricane Impact windows that crank out to open and then added another identical one to the future dining nook where there was not a window at all previously. The windows were a KILLER Craigslist find which I will tell you more about in another post. Stay tuned! As you can see in the photo, our little house is long and narrow and sits on a long and narrow lot. We have an awesome back yard (or shall I say, Harper has an awesome back yard) and we cannot wait to finish up our back patio to enjoy some beautiful Florida weather out there!

The rear of the house is probably the biggest eyesore. An off-centered, broken door, stained siding with a cracked and exposed concrete slab is what we had to work with. We purchased and installed railroad ties extending the entire length of the house to anchor some drop-off that has happened over time due to poor drainage and a lack of gutters. This helped us build up and solidify the property and laid the foundation for our future back patio! I love form and function in a project! The exisiting concrete slab is a great size so we will work off of that but install our new patio material (yet to be decided on) over the concrete and raise it up to meet the door more closely. Right now it is a great leg workout to get in and out of the house through the back door. Once the patio is done it will be raised off of the property with railroad ties bordering the patio. My Dad found us an awesome (free!) outdoor kitchen from a house being demolished complete with a barely used outdoor grill, sink, stainless steel cabinetry and countertops! It is quite large so we are going to see if we can use it all or just bits and pieces. More on that in a future post!

**sorry in advance for any iPhone photos taken during this renovation process. We are doing almost ALL of the work ourselves so my Nikon DSLR didn't find it's way over to the construction site too often in the beginning. I promise it will make an appearance with better photos soon!

Windows

We have done some repairs and minor renovations over the past several years to the house including fixing leaking pipes, painting, laying brick flooring through the kitchen and hall way and carpet in the bedrooms. Basically just to get the house "up to snuff". Most recently my Dad replaced the entire kitchen with new cabinets and quartz counter tops. This changed the entire layout of the kitchen from a small, boxed in area to an open-concept kitchen the flows in to the current living room.

One of the very first things we purchased for the renovation were our windows off of Craigslist. We knew that most of the windows in the house needed to be replaced for aesthetic and functionality purposes. The previous windows were original to the house and had thin aluminum frames and non-impact glass. They were worn and not very pretty to look at.

I started searching for windows on Craigslist. My wants were: new, impact, and pretty. And boy did I score! One day I stumbled on an ad for hurricane impact, PGT brand windows that a contractor bought but never installed. We picked them up that weekend, several months before we even started construction on the exterior. We basically got five windows (4 long, rectangular ones and one oval) for the price of one of the windows retail. Score!


We installed them ourselves with some helpful instruction from our friend, Jim, who is a builder here in town. It was a long process. Each window took roughly a full day to install. That seems like a long time but we basically re-framed the entire house from the outside in. Because the dimensions of these windows were TOTALLY different than the existing windows, each wall had to be re-framed with new 2x4's and headers. We added a long rectangular window to our new dining room and an oval window to our laundry room where there was no window before. People, it was a cave in there before! Dark and dingy and sad. I am one of those crazy people that enjoys doing laundry (I like folding fresh clothes, so shoot me) and I did not want to spend my 'zen time' in a dark, scary cave.

Before the oval window install. Welcome to my lair.

Andddddd after!

And because everyone loves a good before and after side-by-side comparison...

This photo shows the existing window and the outline (in blue painters tape) of the new window. HUGE difference in size and shape!

Marcus painting the waterproofing on the windows

Our friend Jim who is INVALUABLE for advice and tips when it comes to the house. Thank you, Jim!

We also had to buy two Jeldwen windows (full price from Home Depot, :sigh:) for the Master Bedroom and the Guest Bedroom. These windows needed to meet Egress Codes so we didn't have a whole lot of choice with these. I like them though. They are lower to the ground than the old ones and are really nice in the bedrooms. Both look out on to the back yard. Harper already loves sitting and looking out of them. They're right at her height level.

Well, hopefully I haven't bored you too much with a post entirely devoted to windows. I have at least 1,000 more photos of each stage of install of each window so consider yourself lucky. More photos to come of the windows actually in the wall!