My brother couldn’t finish the siding on the lower house because we ran out of siding. So we tried to order more, just the unpainted stucco version, but it ended up being backordered so it didn’t arrive until this week. Unfortunately when I went to pick it up, they informed me that four of the five sheets I ordered were pretty severely damaged. So I just took one and returned the others as damaged.
I brought the piece home yesterday and today after the grandkids went home from their fun overnight at about noon, we took it out of the truck and I measured to cut it for the inner part of the master bedroom doorway. Even though the height of the section was a bit taller than a sheet of siding, I had to cut an angle in the top in order to slide it into place under the porch overhang. Unfortunately as soon as I took the nippers to the board, a big chunk fell out of the corner. So I had to trim the board by about 2 inches for the inside corner. Once that was done, Dave lifted it into place and I drew the line for the other edge. We cut the board and sighed with relief when it didn’t break.
Newly cut piece of siding
We tried nails to find the center of the box for the outside light, then I drilled a hole in the box and started a long screw. I thought some wet paint on the screw head would make a mark at the center of the box on the siding but if it did, it was impossible to see. Instead we measured from the top, bottom and side and drilled a pilot hole big enough to peep through. It was over the hole for the box so I made the hole bigger and tried to determine where the center of the box was located with a screwdriver poked through the hole. Eventually I had a circle on the panel to cut out with a grinder and some tile nippers. After trying it again up on the wall, I had to make the hole larger at the bottom but it turned out the opening was over the hole for the box which was fortunate.
I didn’t get the panel screwed on, just a couple of nails, not nailed in all the way are holding it up, along with a couple of boards leaning against the panel. Tomorrow will get out there and get it screwed in and painted. Since this is the unpainted and therefore cheaper version of the panels, I’m going to use some of the extra edge paint to have the whole panel match, until I get around to changing the outside color to better match the existing stucco.
I hope the pieces left of the siding are enough to cover the rear entry door area. That would mean all the torn off siding from last year gets replaced before deep winter arrives.
Siding to Master Porch