Sunroom Exterior Walls

A real, actual post! Yes, I know it's been ages. I stopped working on the house a few years ago because I accepted a new position at work that requires me to travel a lot. Oh, and we've also had 3 kids in 4 years. I am now in between projects that require travel so I figured that now is a good time to get back to work on the house and try to finish it up.

The project I chose to start on is the exterior of the sunroom. I never finished the exterior walls when I built the sunroom, a combination of white pine trim boards with no paint, only primer on some of them, and a major design flaw, caused a lot of rot.

The bottom exterior trim board ended up sandwiched in with the deck ledger board, creating a pocket to hold, moisture and leaves.

The area circled is where the moisture and leaves would collect. You can see all the rot.

I removed all the rotted boards and put up new plywood.

This time around I decided to use siding instead of paneling. I added siding to the bottom and top areas, and installed new trim boards where they were needed. There is now a small gap between the siding and the edge of the deck for water to shed off.

I then caulked all the seams and began primering the trim.

Most of the trim has been primered. Tomorrow I will finish primering the trim and the siding and then I can paint everything to match the house.

I will tackle the windows at a later time. I will have to remove one at a time, strip them down completely, primer, paint, reinstall glass and glaze. Not really looking forward to that part.

Paint!

Finally, after weeks of prep work, The final coat of paint is on the house! I still have a lot of trim to paint and I haven't even started on the porches yet but this is a big milestone for the house. It's been a patchwork of colors, primer, and bare wood for years now.

Here are a few pictures:

(Sorry for the blurry pictures, I think something was on the lense of my camera phone)  I had to make a lot of repairs to the siding, here I replaced the bottom two boards, there was one board completely missing and the other was splintered beyond repair. I installed Hardie Board to replace them. It's really a great match, you cant even tell that it's not original.

Here is a shot of the south side of the house during the caulking phase:

Here are some pictures after painting:

There is still a lot of trim work to do on the Sunroom, once all the woodwork is done it will be painted the trim color (Valspar Homestead Resort Jefferson White)

The color is still a little brighter that I wanted and a little too orange but I can live with it and I think it will look great once the trim is cut in.

I'm hoping to have all the trim cut in by this weekend, then it's back to finishing the front porch and columns.

Sunroom Interior

I had family over this past weekend for a big cook-out so I had some things I needed to finish up before then. One of them was the sunroom. The doorway between the sunroom and living room was still not framed out, none of the french doors were hung, and I still had nothing on the walls.

First thing I did was frame out the doorway. First, I made the sill.

Then I framed the doorway and installed the french door.

 I used some original plinth blocks on the inside. I dont have any spare fluted casing though so I had to go with plain for now. I will be having some milled to match the original down the road, once I do that I will replace these and install rosettes in the upper corners as well.

I also installed  the french doors that go to the hallway and to the deck.

All of these french doors are salvaged. The doors that lead to the hallway and living room were a pair that came from an old 1906 farmhouse that was being torn down. The smaller door that leads out to the deck was one I found online for free.

As with the screen doors, they all fit the width but not the height of the door frames. These were all too long though and had to be cut down.

I found a really great mortise lock while at a flea market, I got it for $3. It has a dead bolt built into it. I installed it into the door that leads to the deck since this is an outside door. I used an antique set of rosettes and door knob to give it more of an original look.

I still need to find an escutcheon for the dead bolt part of it and finish sanding around the knob. I had to use wood putty to cover the old holes in the door.

The other major undertaking was the sunroom walls.

Some mold had appeared on the inside walls of the sunroom. This was because of a drainage issue that I am working to take care of. I scrubbed the mold off with bleach then primered the inside of the walls.

As you can see in the above picture I also had to run all the electrical  in the walls first. I also sealed all the cracks with expanding foam.

Then I insulated the walls.

I was going to use grooved plywood on the walls but instead went with a press-board material that looks like cedar planks.

There is still a lot left to do in this room. I need to insulate the ceiling and put up beadboard, install all the window trim, then paint the room.

Building the deck and oven cabinet

I know I haven't posted in a few weeks but it's because I kept forgetting the camera, not for lack of work.

Last week I built the oven cabinet, installed the double ovens and the cooktop.



We also got our sink faucet in, it's a really nice bridge faucet in oil rubbed bronze from Signature Hardware.



We spent last weekend landscaping the front of the house. I probably should have rebuilt the front porch first but the yard was looking really bad.




The landscaping is a mix of boxwood, holly, gardenia, and azalea.

The big project we've been working on is the deck. First I had to tear down the old porch deck. I had to cut it apart section by section. I had wanted to save the flooring, it was a full 1" thick, but it was very moldy so I couldn't.


There is a well under where the porch was next to the kitchen door, I'm not sure what I am going to do with it.



With the area cleared out I could begin building the new deck. First I hung the ledger boards, Then I placed the piers that will hold up the brace beam. I dug holes at each location and filled them with concrete to give the piers a solid foundation. I also had to prime the side of the sunroom before I installed the ledger board on it.

Then I built the beam. It is built out of 2 pressure treated 2x10's sandwiched together. The span is 21' long, there are no 2x10's that long so I had to make each beam 10' 6". I installed an extra pier at the location where they meet in the middle.


The deck will extend another 2' 6" beyond the beam, right up to the old stairs. I plan on keeping them.

I forgot the joist hangers so I had to leave it at that today. Hopefully I can get back out there tomorrow and finish installing the joists and put the decking down.

Sunroom Floor

Yesterday I installed the sunroom floor.


Then we brought in our sunroom furniture temporarily to make sure everything would fit properly.

Sunroom siding

Yesterday I worked on the siding for the sunroom. I didn't get much done because it kept raining on and off for most of the day.


I still have a lot left to do...

Sealing and grouting the floor

On Thursday I sealed the floor. I put 2 coats down then let it dry overnight. On Friday I grouted then sponged it 3 times. Today when I came back there was still a slight haze on the floor.


I'm going to try to scrub it tomorrow then put down another coat of sealer if I have time.

Today I also laid down a sub-floor in the sunroom in preparation for the oak flooring.


I had to use left over plywood scraps because I'm out of plywood and my truck is broken down for the time being.

Sunroom windows finished

Yesterday afternoon I finished the sunroom windows. Just in time too, we're supposed to have 4 days of rain...

More sunroom windows

I got 3 more sunroom windows and the door frame installed yesterday evening.

Sunroom Windows

I worked on the sunroom windows yesterday afternoon and only got 2 more done. It's very slow going, First I have to build the casing for each window, every trim piece either has a miter or a bevel cut plus I'm having to cut about 3/4" off each side of each window. Once all the windows are installed I'll go back and remove them one by one to restore them properly.



I had to stop doing that and go upstairs into the attic above the kitchen and dining room to install a knee wall. The plumbers need the wall in place so they can install the water heater. Half of this attic space will become our laundry room.


The water heater will sit where the plumbing is in front of the new wall (A new door will be opened up to the left out of the picture). I only built this small portion of the wall because at the end of it the wall will break right about 3 feet before turning back. The knee wall at that point will only be about 3' high. This will give us more room in this space.