Extra Hardie

So, what do you do with $900 worth of pre-painted hardie siding? Why, you use it to make louvers, of course. Most people use lattice to add a bit of privacy below elevated houses. Some use 1x6's to create louvers. That's what we planned on doing, probably painted dark green. But since we have so much extra hardie siding, David decided to try using the siding for the louvers. This is the first one set in place, filling in the lower left opening. I am trying to convince David that the heathered moss looks great - truth is, I don't want to paint all of them dark green. We'll drive by it for the next week and see how we like it lighter.

Sheetrock started a couple of weeks ago. The first coat of mud is on - I am guessing they will be done sometime this week. There are several crews and they work multiple houses. They let the mud dry for several days, so it is taking a couple of weeks. The big decision for sheetrock was the finish that we wanted. So we talked orange peel, knockdown, and smooth for a week, but after looking at a couple of houses, we both decided that we like the smooth finish for both the walls and the ceilings. Of course that costs more! We are going to have the same crews paint the primer, and probably do the finish paint as well.

We purchased real beadboard for the sunroom ceiling. The beadboard sheets are 8'x4', and our ceiling is 10' and 12' wide, so we purchased the "sticks" in 10' and 12' lengths. More work for David! That will go up after the sheetrock is primed.

We are also picking out tile - lots of choices, but we found one porcelaine tile that we both like, so will be using that for the floors and/or the shower walls. It's hard to look at tile without knowing the prices - the fandy border tiles that they suggest to use with one of the tiles we looked at cost $40/ft. That's for a 3" wide strip, so that's $160/ft². We're not that in love with that border! But the border can really make the shower surround look really nice, so we'll probably do something. Maybe something in the $10-$20 per foot range!