The back of our house was a MESS. The whole house is covered in wood siding- except the laundry room and two bathrooms. Those both had vinyl siding and were mismatched from the rest of the exterior. With the laundry room renovation, that siding came down. We needed to fix it, so we decided to put up diy house siding to unify everything.

before

Here you can see the plywood on the laundry room. All of the stone is from a chimney that we removed. It wasn’t functioning and was causing a leak. The siding is over our two bathrooms. See what I mean by a mess?!

This has been a slog of a project! My husband and I didn’t enjoy it so we let it drag on. Well, finally, we finished phase one of this project so I thought I’d share our process.

diy house siding

Step 1- remove the siding that you no longer want.

Step 2- Cover the plywood on the house in Tyvek Home Wrap. We nailed ours on and used Tyvek tape on the seams. Flashing Tape was used around the windows to keep water out.Step 3- Next, we installed the trim boards. We ended up liking the following look- first we put the “baseboard” down, then installed the siding (so they are flush), and then installed the window trim on top of the siding.

We continued that step around to the laundry room too. Trim was installed on the corner to seal it.

Step 4- last, I caulked all the seams and screw holes. It took forever, but I was motivated by the fact that I could get paint soon- after weeks of it being under construction!

after

Here is the back of the house now, it is looking much better! I used this exterior paint in the color- Ultra Pure White. I love, love the white! Though this does mean that the rest of the house will need to be painted one day in the same white. You can still see where we need to patch the house from the chimney, but little by little we’ll get there!

Part of what motivated me to finish this project is I am SO excited to put a swing here! Our backyard isn’t very private, but in the alcove, is a rare space that is shady by 3pm. It’ll be perfect for an outdoor swing!

Figuring out a “fun” aspect of a project can be majorly motivating! Having a vision for how you’ll enjoy the space can make it so you can push through the hard parts.

I was just reading a book today (“Girl, Stop Apologizing” by Rachel Hollis) and loved this quote- “If I want to achieve any new thing in my life, the question is never, Can I do it? The question is always, What am I willing to give up in order to get it?” I LOVE that! I got plenty of relaxing in yesterday, but I also spent a bit chunk of my day painting. Because this is something I wanted.

I set up my outdoor table and umbrella in front of the newly finished siding. It looks so cute! We actually still need to excavate and lay down more pea gravel, but I just wanted to see this spot looking pretty. It felt good after all the hard work.

swing plans

The next step is to build a frame for a swing. We have the cutest swing sitting in our basement, just waiting for us to get to it. And now we’re almost there! My husband will build the frame and I’ll paint it white and we’ll hang it shortly.

Here’s the plans- I pulled this together to show my husband what I want so I thought I’d put it on here too so you can kind of follow my train of thought.

On the top right is the plan for the frame- nice and simple. On the top left is how I want to embellish the frame. I’m thinking lattice on the sides and top so I can eventually grow wisteria on it!!! I’ll add corbels that match our front porch to decorate the corners. And decorative trim for the front to add a little Victorian character.

The swing is no longer available, but is actually white (I could only find a picture of the black version). That’ll have a bench cushion and a few pillows for comfort and decoration.

So that’s where we are and where we are going! What do you think?! Excited about the swing too?

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