Another day and another few square of aluminum siding had to go. I ended up removing the siding from the clapboard areas on each side of the door today. I also started scraping all of the newly revealed areas so I can get ready to install any trim pieces and paint.
The colors that have been on the Tiny Bungalow are pretty cool. After a bit of scraping, you can see that the trim has a yellow, a dark green, and a couple whites. The clapboards look like they have only been shades of white but it is hard to tell. I am not sure what I am going to do about the ceiling area at the stairs. It has been painted over significantly more than the ceiling in the porch so the bead boards barely show through. I may just scrape it a little mroe and paint it over, not caring too much if I get that clean beadboard look. I guess I can settle for it looking "clean". I am not sure though.
I also broke down and removed the siding on the column capital. It took a little gymnastics but I got it off. Note that my wife took pics of me doing this and offered words of encouragement so she is now culpable and can't leave me if the project goes wrong. I have a little work to do on the columns. Some of the wood is slightly rotted at the corner - actually a very tiny amount. Not sure if I want to take on any re-building right now so it may just get painted and then addressed again in the spring.
I still have that symmetry issue too. Should I also do the other side? I think you already know the answer to that one.
Finally, a question for anyone that has removed siding before: How do you get out the siding nails. They seem to be coated so they stick in there pretty well. Also, when I use a claw or hammer to try and pull them out, the heads bend or break off so I am stuck counter-sinking them back into the surface. There has to be a trick to this, right?
4 comments:
End cutting nippers is what I use.
The jaws are thin enough on the very edge to grab even the shallowest set nail.
The jaws are also rounded so after grabbing hold of the nail roll to one side. This uses the nippers for leverage rather than trying to use muscle to pull the nail out. If the nail is long just re grab the nail and repeat process.
I also use these pliers/nippers for flooring tacks. Harbor Freight has these pliers/nippers for a fairly reasonable price.
Jan
Another thing you can try is to take a pair of vice grips and grip the nail with them, then use your hammer or pry bar with the vise grips acting as a surrogate nail head.
I tried something like the first suggestion but it gauges into the wood a bit more than I would like - the wood is very soft. I like the vice-grips idea too and am going to try that out later this week.
Yay for old crappy siding removal! Our siding had tons of gouges and holes under it from the vinyl put on top. We had to use LOTS of wood filler.
Also depending how bad the paint is in various spots, we saw different colors as well. In some places, the layers had chipped so much that we could tell the original color was a stained dark green, similar to the paint we had chosen!
One last note: Those columns look SO much better. When repairing, maybe "wood hardener" would help strengthen them and prepare them better for the outside exposure.
Congratulations on uncovering the past! :-)
Post a Comment