Thursday, September 20, 2012

Overcoming carpenter's block

I am tardy with my updates on the addition.  At the time of the last update, it had two walls but no roof. 
Now, it's got all the walls, roof, windows, weather seal, and rough-ins for electricity, plumbing, and heat. Here's an extremely truncated review of what's been going on on the outside:


A lot of work.  I didn't do much of it--framing a structure and roofing are things I'm content to leave to the pros, who did their work with (mostly) competence and efficiency*.  I (and brothers M and H) can take credit for the wrapping job.  The exterior of the addition has been in this state for a month or so--been very busy with the interior and with other projects.

However, winter is coming, and rain with it, so it's imperative to get the exterior of the addition finished.  Today I started sawing wood for the window trim on the addition.  It should not be that big a deal.  After all, I have been whacking and hacking and pounding and sawing at the house for months now.  However, I've been putting it off.  All that pounding and sawing has been either demolition (fun!) or invisible--structural stuff, or in the attic or basement.  Now, I'm working on a very visible feature of the house, and I've been in the thrall of carpenter's block--kind of like putting off cutting the f-holes on a violin. 

I'm trying to recreate the look (and carpentry) of the original window frames on the rest of the house, and it's a bit of a challenge. New vinyl windows are attached to the sub-siding on the outside of the wall, so they protrude from the wall.  However, the old windows (and the windows we replaced them with) sit within the wall.  Recreating the look of the existing windows without having them bug out takes some fussing, and I spent a day making a "rough draft" of the window design out of scrap wood and some reclaimed siding:

This looks OK, and got the structural seal of approval from the contractor, so I went and purchased a truck-full of cedar and spent today turning a lot of it into sawdust, and the remainder into frames.  Having overcome my block, I'm going to spend at least another day cutting some of the more fiddly bits.  Hopefully, next week we'll see some nicely framed windows, and I can get to putting up the siding. 

Also, hopefully, it won't rain.

*There's always something.  The four windows on the end were originally misplaced, and there have been a variety of other futzy things.  You just don't want to be away when the contractors are at work--and truthfully, they want you there too. It's like having an editor, it guarantees the end product will be better.

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