Siding Pictures!

 

 

Fascia Confusion

Before the temperature dropped too low, I knew I had to get out to stain my fascia boards, which are already on the house. Dealing with the fascia boards has not been straightforward. I didn’t even know what the word fascia meant before I started researching for the build, and there’s several different ways to install fascia and no obvious “right” way. When I pictured them, I assumed they would be the fourth edge that the roof sheathing would land on, so that’s how I installed mine. But that meant that they had to be installed back in June, before I was ready to do any staining. Tiny Nest (in B.C.) stained their fascia before putting it up, but I think they’re a bit more organized than me. 😛 Coincidentally, I ended up with the same brand of stain they used! I love following Canadian builds.

My overhang is only about 4.5″ instead of 6″ as I planned, in case I needed to add another board on top of the fascia. Some houses have a sub-fascia and then a decorative fascia on top. But I kinda forgot about all that when I was installing the drip edges and my roofing, so I can’t put a board on top of those. It’s probably better to have the house a little skinnier than the maximum, but it does mean that the rain drips off the roof onto my wheel well boxes and it’s loud.

I used butt joints for my fascia (with metal plates and nails holding them together), even though it probably would’ve been better to cut them at angles to account for expansion and contraction, like Tiny Nest did. 😛

The fascia is part of the exterior that was required for the rough building stages, but will show in the end, so I should’ve taken more care with it. There’s a twisty board end (which I’ve tried to fix, but it’s stubborn) and a gouge in another spot, but it looks good from a distance!

When I put the boards up, I figured I’d deal with staining later. Well, now it’s later, and of course it would’ve been easier to stain them before I put them up. Too late! In addition to that, they’ve also been rained on over the past several months, and have started to go a little grey. At the recommendation of the kind staff at the hardware store, I mixed up a solution of water, bleach, and TSP to clean the fascia (my parents used the same thing on our shed before staining). I spent a day up on a ladder scrubbing the fascia and thinking about how I’m a homeowner, now that I’m spending my free time on home maintenance. 😛

Starting to go grey.

Protecting the house and windows from bleach.

Scrubbed!

Rinsed and dried.

Just like new!

I decided to sand the fascia after all. The scrubbing made it a bit rough.

Left side not sanded, right side sanded.

Looking good so far!

New brush!

Look at that!

Back of the house.

I like it!

When I was picking out the stain, I was trying to find a brown and a purple that went well together, but I forgot to match the brown to the roofing. When I first started staining the fascia on the side, I was a little nervous about the colour. On the front, where there’s no white drip edge separating the colours, I think it looks great! I’ll have to take some more pictures on a sunnier day.

It took about 3 hours to scrub the fascia clean, then an hour to sand it all, and another 4 hours moving the ladder and carrying the stain bucket up and down, up and down to stain it all. It was worth it though. So far I’m happy with the stain I picked and I’m glad I didn’t have to deal with staining while I was trying to get my roof on in June. See my previous post for details about staining my siding!