Soffits

Next up on the building agenda is exterior finishing work: soffits, board & batten siding, garage doors, and gutters. We priced garage doors and gutters and decided to hire those rather than DIY. Could we do it? Yes. Was it worth it to hire someone else? Yup. Especially as we're now free to stain and install 2,000 square feet of board & batten siding. Yee ha!

But first we needed to put up the soffits. This is actually pretty straightforward. Buy plastic soffit material at your favorite hardware store. Get F or J channel depending on your setup (we used F channel). Mount channel to decorative edge board (the 1x8s that I stained black). Mount decorative board. Mark level line on house side and nail up another channel. Then snip the soffit to size and slide it in. Simple. Time consuming. 

Finished soffits on first and second floor of south side

The south side went quick as it's not too far off the ground - we didn't need an extensive ladder set up. Just a couple ladders and a scaffold board and we could work on 10 feet at a time.

The east and west ends weren't as friendly. We first tried a Rube Goldberg set up of scaffolding and ladders and quickly realized that neither of us were setting foot on it. So we got out the extension ladders and wrestled those around instead.

Before soffit (and insanely dangerous setup)

The soffits not only give the house a more finished look - they keep critters out of the eaves.

Installing soffit

After soffit

The west end was a bit simpler once we added the truck as a ladder base. Actually used the truck bed rail more than the ladder as it was incredibly stable.

Just use the truck

West end done!

The upper gables are not done yet. We're going to rent a man-lift to do those along with the siding all at the same time. So now it's on to the siding!