Knock On Wood

This is a load of cypress from Louisiana that I had milled to use as the exterior trim on the house. It is beautiful wood; I almost hate to stain it a color but that's the way it goes. I am using Hardie board lap siding on the house but could not find a suitable trim board in the Hardie product so that is my reason for going with the cypress. The options for trim are very limited when it comes to pre-manufactured siding but you don't have to go with what they have. The boards here were milled down to a full 1 1/4" thick by 12" wide. We then ripped them down to 5" for window and door trim and one side of the corner boards. The other side is 3 3/4" so the corners are equal and it worked out to use some of the 3 3/4" boards for the bottom trim under the sill. The drop from ripping these boards was exactly the right size to make the sill extensions out of so it worked out perfectly. The windows came with sill extensions but they were sized for brick mould, which I hate. Since I am going with a 5" trim, the sills were too short. Not too big a deal to make more and the ones on the windows popped off pretty easy.
Here you can see 2 of the north windows trimmed out. Yes, the trim goes up first and the lap siding will butt against the trim. That way you don't have any spaces under the trim as you would if you were to lay it over the siding. That calls for more careful cutting of the siding but that's OK. I am just hoping that there in minimal shrinkage in the wood. I still need to put up my corner boards, which won't take too long, and then I can start actually running siding.
This is a little detail shot of the trim. The small groove in the back of the sill will cover up with the siding. The windows had a 1/4" tenon along the front that the sill extension fit over so we had to make these with the same thing. It will help keep the sill in line. I ran a bead of caulking in that groove and then slipped it in place. I also nailed, up through the sill, into the side pieces in order to hold that 1/4" reveal. Wider boards sometimes want to try to twist so I'm hoping to stop some of that. The sills extend past the sides 1" both ways, as does the header piece. That is sort of a Craftsman style trim and always been one of my favorites.
I am using an opaque stain on the trim and siding. It is basically an acrylic resin. Goes on like paint but you can actually see the grain in the wood well. I am very pleased with the look. I think it has something like a 20 year warranty. I am trying to avoid the peeling and blistering that you get with paint by using this stain. There are a fair amount of colors to choose from but not like paint. It is the Olympic brand. I wanted to use Cabot but they did not have the colors that I wanted.
I have never thought of myself as a great trim carpenter but am very pleased with how this is looking so far. The wood trim just has such a nice feel to it.


*Eddie Floyd