First, a few weeks back when my brother was here last we did a few little things, lined the walls over the tub with leftover paneling as a backer for the shower surround:
Also made some curved blocks to round off the sharp edges on the front. Then we wrapped some tyvek over the front for a little extra insurance against water intrusion. I wanted to do the whole thing, but didn't have enough tyvek.
That brings us to this week. We got started on Tuesday, Oct 26. The first piece of siding is the most critical - if it's not level, the whole thing will be off. I also wanted the design to line up on the side and rear walls, so we had to cut the side pieces down (in height) since the rear wall crowns upwards due to the roof. Here's the first piece going on!
Then just add pieces and work your way down.
We used full length pieces and then cut them to length once they were hung. The length is oversized about 1" on each end:
Went as far as we could with full height pieces on the door side:
Then worked on the road side:
Same deal, as far as we can go with full height pieces:
Now it's time to move to the rear wall. Here's where that 1" overhang I mentioned earlier comes in. We cut slits into the overhang every 1.5" or so:
Bend the pieces around the corner, flatten them out with a plastic hammer and staple them down:
The slits allow you to make the bend without distorting the siding pattern:
We made it as far as we could down the rear wall just as it got dark. You can't really see it in these pictures but a strip of butyl tape was laid down the length of the corner before the rear siding went on:
Forecast said rain for Wednesday so we tarped it up and cleaned up.
Thursday, October 28:
I took another picture of the rear in the daylight:
Since Thursday was warmer (around 70F), I decided to glue down the roof. I did not want to be laying adhesive in the 50's. Cut out the holes in the roof and gave it a quick light sanding:
Then we slit, bent and secured the overhang on the front:
Next up is the EPDM roof rubber. I got the piece of rubber dirt cheap. The downside is it had to be shipped folded in a box. End result is some permanent crease lines in the rubber. I can deal with that considering the $200+ cost savings. To minimize the marks, we laid it out in the sun for a while then rolled it tight around a piece of pipe. Then it was rolled out on the roof and left to sit for a day. Cutting it to length:
Break out the glue:
Fold the rubber back:
Apply the adhesive to half the roof with a roller:
Lay down the rubber, work the air bubbles out with a broom and a squeegee, then fold the other half back and repeat:
You can see some of those lines I was talking about in that picture. Not perfect, but no air bubbles, and it lays flat. Once it was down, we trimmed the excess, tack stapled the sides and called it a day.
Friday, October 29:
Time to finish siding the front wall. Thought the bends would make this a nightmare, but it was actually pretty easy. Getting the first piece straight was the only tough part. Here's the first couple of pieces on, you can see the butyl tape well in this shot. We also caulked the interlock on all the pieces:
Keep on working the way down. We had to cut a few pieces to be shorter in height so no seams landed on a curve. You can see the seam lines if you look close:
Here's another angle, you can see where we had to cut the door open partially so we could get inside:
At this point all we are left with is the last few pieces of siding all the way around. It was less than a full piece, so we had to figure out how to terminate things and have it look clean. Also needed to work out a way to waterproof the wheel well to siding junction. I picked up a few pieces of drip edge from home depot. This is usually used on the edges of roofs on buildings, but it fit the bill here. We lined the perimeter of the base of the walls with the drip edge:
To seal the wheel wells, we brought the lip over and sealed the mating surfaces with flashing cement, then stapled it in place:
Saturday, October 30:
Now we had to deal with terminating the last piece of siding. I wanted to bend the siding over at the bottom for a clean look, but I don't have access to a brake that long. I thought we could cut a piece just shy of the corner of the drop edge and get a decent look, but a test fit of a scrap also showed that the bottom landed on a high point of the pattern, so that wouldn't look good at all. What we did was cut down the height of a length of siding and installed that, leaving us with about 1" of uncovered area remaining:
At the wheel wells, we cut those out long:
Then diagonal cut the corners:
Bent them over:
Sealed the mating surfaces with more flashing cement and stapled them down. Came out real good and the plastic fenders will fit nicely.
For that last 1", I ran back to HD and picked up some more drip edge. We cut that to length and trimmed a little off the height, slipped it into the groove in the siding and secured it underneath the wall edge with staples. A perfect finished edge without a brake!
We did the same on the rear, although I forgot to get a picture.
Sunday, October 31:
We finished up the front siding. Similar procedure as the sides, but we had about a 4" gap to fill that time. A piece of fascia from home depot was used to finish off that edge. I again forgot to take a picture
Next I installed the outside outlet and got the cover on and sealed up, and then we cut the full door opening. You can somewhat see the finished front edge behind the ladder:
Finally we installed the door:
And that was as far as we made it for the weekend. Next time we need to install the edge trim, gutters and roof vents, then it will be water tight.
- Frank
All these "little" jobs that you figure will take a few minutes wind up taking forever. I wasn't going to post an update until we got a bit more done to look at, but since you asked, here's a quick update.. 
All the pictures and writeups are needed for the "fix" to see how it comes along. Personally, I really like this build... Made me "plan" my next one and it has some great idea's. Thanks for the updates and let us know how things go.
