Corn Crib Comes Inside

While the blog has been quiet the past month, we have made progress on a long-awaited project! We've dressed up the exterior walls of the powder room with what Scott has dubbed "corn crib siding." This is a detail that we have planned to do since the remodel and we're quite pleased with the effect.

We had to begin at the beginning. The bright yellow (aka SW "Sequin") had to be replaced with a darker color. Once things were neatly taped off, the painting began.

We had nearly a gallon of SW "Black Bean" leftover from the remodel. (This color was used on the underside of the connector stairs.) I took it in to Sherwin-Williams and had it shaken - and it was as good as new.

The Black Bean is enamel paint so it's pretty shiny, not to mention really dark -- like a big bowl of hot fudge but not quite as tasty.

Meanwhile . . . we had to prepare the wood "siding." We used fir boards from Home Depot that are about 3/4" deep x 2 1/2" tall and 8-ft. long. The fun began with adding two coats of cherry stain to each of 64 boards.

Good thing we still have a workshop set up in the basement! It took a bit of jiggering to find enough horizontal surface to place the boards for drying.

Two 1x4s were added vertically to the corner.

As the width of each board were determined, a third coat of stain was added. Then, after a bit of math, it was determined that the boards could be applied evenly to the top simply by using a scrap of the same wood as a spacer.

 Here it is . . .six boards later...

 . . . and after 16 boards.

Some of the dark paint peeled as the frog tape was taken down. Scott touched up the bit that showed between slats with a little brush and a steady hand.

We've turned the corner on progress! The remaining boards have been cut to length and stained again for the third time; once they're dry, we'll get them up.  The next task will be sanding, and adding one coat of brush-on poly and two coats of wipe-on poly (just like all the other woodwork in the house.)

Stay Tuned for More Progress!