Putting up the siding

We decided to go with the barn red rather than the horrible orange. Not exactly a tough decision, huh? 

Staining the boards takes a good bit of time as we're doing both sides so they breath the same (this is supposed to help with cracking). Since the back of the board will never be seen, we bought oops stain for only $7 a can. That's versus the $45 a can that the real stuff costs. Nice savings. 

Getting set up

The first boards up were the skirt boards. This gave us the proper overhang and a level surface against which to mount the vertical boards.

Level skirt boards

The weather was, once again, gorgeous. I mean, "how did we get so lucky" gorgeous.

Leaves just starting to turn

You need to cut holes for electrical lights and trim around windows as you move across the house. I have three lights, one gas pipe, one vent pipe, and two electrical outlets on this wall alone.

Fitting the light box

That means I got to do more jigsawing.

Cut, cut, cut

 But eventually we had all the boards up on the first level. Love it!

One side down, three to go!

The upper levels will get done when we rent the man-lift. Although we're already thinking that we can get the wings and part of the middle section done before we rent. At least the nails in the lower sections anyway.