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Installing the Roof & Siding – Episode 10 & 11 of Building a Farmhouse

It has been a while since I have posted a new update on the house build, but I am happy to report we are moving along. Right now we are working on the interior finishes so I will post each episode as quickly as possible in order to catch up to where were are today.

If you have missed any of the previous posts about our build, you can catch up on them in our Building a Farmhouse series.

One of the hardest things of not having an actual house to live in is that it is very difficult to sit and work on your computer while you have 5 other members of your family not even 10 feet away making noise, asking questions, wanting to be fed, asking where their red T-shirt is for school… just being a family really.

Next thing you know you find yourself 10 episodes behind on your blog, because that one day you thought, ” I will get to it tomorrow” and you just never got to it. It has been something I constantly kick myself over, because just as I catch up and get into the groove of things, something happens and it all spirals out of control. I learn to give myself grace, but then getting back to typing on a regular basis just gets harder to do for every day that goes by.

And for that reason I am consolidating 2 episodes into 1. Of course, you can always bing watch the entire series here.

Episode 10 of our series is all about the roof.

This was the first time we really encountered issues with our contractors. So much so that Nelson had to literally kick them off our property and get a new crew to come and complete the job.

It was combination of sloppy work, not doing the job correctly and plain old disrespectful and dangerous behavior. Nelson was not having any of it.

As you can see in the end, the roof turned out just fine and everything was completed like it should have been. However, it did not come without many headaches.

While we share all the details of what “drama” took place in the video below, I did want to mention what we had a choice between metal and shingles on the roof and I made the decision to go with shingles. Our roof pitch is really steep and a metal roof was not the safest option with our snowy winters.

Also, there is a risk of condensation when it comes to metal roofing and we didn’t want to risk the possibility.

I wasn’t going for a stark “black and white” modern farmhouse look on the house, so I went with a charcoal color. And finally, we went the architectural shingle route which are much nicer than your standard builder grade shingles.

In episode 11 of our series, we talked about the siding. And no, we did not plan on leaving the house this yellow color. The reason it is yellow is because the hardie plank siding we chose comes primed in that yellow color. This siding is actually a cement board that is ultra durable.

We knew from the start that we were going with hardie board, however, we did entertain the thought of doing a board and batten exterior application. We quickly learned that this was way more expensive. Labor installation costs are much higher and it requires way more maintenance than laying it in the traditional horizontal pattern.

So in the end practicality and budget were the deciding factors when it came to the siding. Thankfully, unlike the roofing install, this went way more smoothly.

Watch the process and get the rest of the details below.