It’s been far too long without a Dragonstone update. I know. Sadness.
So let’s start with the MOST EXCITING!!! news – the brick was installed this week!
Before:
After:
All the heart-eye emojis (it wraps around like that on the other side too):
How it compares to our house (house garage shown on right side here):
Progress photo:
We’ve had Dragonstone wrapped since the end of October 2019, so, a we’re little behind on getting it cladded, but it’s all good. We would have been installing the rest of the cladding (siding) this weekend, but if you’ve talked to me in person at all since last Wednesday you know Menards is on my S list for not having our order ready. So, yeah. Everything we need for siding should arrive November 4th, and we’ll (with Dad) install it that weekend. There will be vertical black siding around the man door, and vinyl fake wood siding on the rest. (Did you know vinyl siding is highly flammable? Eek! We had this cool metal siding that looked like wood picked out (for aesthetic, not safety reasons), but I think it was a cost difference of $12,000 between the metal siding and the vinyl, so vinyl it is!).
The brick still needs to be cleaned later this week, and after that, we can install the coach lights, yay! And paint the attic vent and install it (that’s the opening near the peak). We need to paint the lintel beam the brick is sitting on above the garage door, and eventually paint and install some molding around the brick.
We (mostly Steven, but I helped some!) had a lot of prep work to do so that the brick could be installed this week but… can I remember what much of it was?! We finished installing the front soffits in the middle of September. We prepped the electrical and security, sealed up some stuff, er… I will update this section after Steven reads this post. Thanks, Steven!
Other VERY EXCITING!!! Dragonstone news – we had gutters installed on September 16th.
Ha, sometimes we’d be working out there in the rain before we had gutters, and the rain went right off the roof and down our backs. That was fun times but NO MORE!
Last weekend we started working on the frieze boards (the trim that goes between the soffit and siding/brick). We cut them and painted them. Then it rained most of Sunday and we took a break (I know, I sounded so hardcore above, saying we worked out there in the rain, muah ha ha, I tricked you!). I think we’ll install them this weekend, along with the coach lights and who knows what else. (Steven knows)
It looks so different with brick, after seeing it wrapped for a year! I can’t wait to see the siding up… in November.
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I’m sure this isn’t a coincidence, but the brick on Dragonstone matches the brick on your house so well!
I would’ve been so conflicted if I were in your shoes about the siding. Covering my garage in something highly flammable would freak me out, but so would an additional $12,000 O.O That’s a gigantic price difference! Obviously you’re not going to change your plan at this point, but is there a middle ground – something that’s not flammable but also isn’t insanely expensive?
Thank you! I am glad you think so! We could not find an exact match but from far away they look similar!
Right? It was an easy decision for us since it was all about aesthetics and then when we were going the research we saw how flammable vinyl is, so yeah, we will pay attention to that and not use anything flammable by it. And it’s insured.
That is a good question. I bet anything that is not flammable and looks nice is going to be a bit more $$$ based on what I have seen! Maybe in a few years there will be more options!
So siding doesn’t go up before the gutters?
Not in our case! Our siding was special order and was not going to be here for two months (and now even longer due to Menards messing it up, sigh). We wanted to get the gutters up asap to get water away from the house so we could plant grass seed and not have it be flooded out from the pooling water. And it’s ideal to plant grass in the fall but it would have been too late (weather-wise) if we waited for when the siding was supposed to arrive (last week) or when it’s going to (Nov 4). So the gutters went up. We’ll take the downspouts down when we put siding up in the back. There’s two screws on each downspout so it should not be a big deal to take off. Hopefully 😉
This reminds me I didn’t mention all the work we did to try to level the soil to plant the seed, oops.
It looks great – I am in awe of how you guys have done this all yourselves.
Thanks!
But did you know that vinyl siding is highly energy efficient, incredibly low maintenance, and super durable? <– At least, that's what I always say on the pages I write about vinyl siding, hahaha. I had no idea it was so flammable! OOPS.
I also love that you use the word "cladding" because I use that word sometimes on my pages about siding, because there's only so many times you can say "siding" before it seems repetitive.
Anyway, Dragonstone looks AMAZING and I love the brick so much! It matches your house so well!!
I did not! So thanks for sharing that! I have been too busy being mad at Menards and sad that we could not afford the metal one to think about the benefits of it 😉 And now you know about the flammability LOL.
Ha, and I am glad someone knows what cladding means! That is what we learned to say in architecture school but some people are like “huh?” 😉
Thank you! And we got the coach lights up yesterday, and the frieze board and vent up today and it’s looking even better!