Finish and trim for cedar clapboard
Thanks everyone for the helpful advice and diverse opinions always found here on breaktime.
We are finishing a barn, and then our house with cedar clapboards and would like a natural finish. I’m fairly convinced based on reading past discussions that Penofin is the way to go. Now I have a few trim questions. How thick should my corner boards and trim boards be to cover the 1/2″x6″ bevel siding. Will 1x stock do the job (assume 3/4″ thick??)
We would like some help chosing trim styles and colors. Unfortunately, the area we now live in has very few clear cedar homes to say “I like that one” etc. In fact, I havn’t seen any. The older homes are clapboard and painted, newer homes are all vinyl. Anyway, if you folks have any pictures you could post it would be very helpful. My google searches didn’t land much.
We are not sure whether to stain the window/corner/soffit/rake trim, leave it natural like the siding, or paint it a solid color. Is using an accenting wood species cheaper/easier than staining or painting? If I do paint, will it wreak havoc to spray the Penofin over the trim, or does that need to be masked off? If so, staining seems more attractive. Does anyone have experience with colored, semi-transparent stains (greens, blues etc.)? Could the Penofin be used on those without issue? What do they look like after a few years? I would love to get Marvin windows in the house, but at this point they my be Andersen. This will impact the trim choice of course. How often can I expect to recoat the house? Has anyone used a tree sprayer for this, I do not have an air compressor or HVLP system of any sort.
Thanks for the advice, and please post any pictures you may have.
Replies
It would be easier to give you design opinions if you could post pictures of your house. There are so many styles out there that it's hard to give blanket advice.
IN GENERAL, Penofin or Sikkens are the best stains, 3/4" is enough for the corner boards to cover the ends of the clapboards but 5/4 creates a stronger shadow line which can be nice. Natural-finish corner boards, a darker brown stain, or dark earth tones like evergreen, slate blue-gray, or maroon all could look good.
Lighter colored trim could look ok but to me it makes it look like somebody forgot to paint the clapboards.
If you go with Andersen they have one or two earth tones that you could try to match.
Thanks for your reply. No house built yet, so no pictures, but here is the current west elevation. Currently I am showing a 4x trim around the windows, but I think it would be easier to skip this and bring the clapboards in to the window casing. This is a thinner line, but we think that's OK. My though was to leave the corner boards natural, and perhaps paint the eave and rake some earthy color as you suggest and perhaps leaving the soffit natural. However, painting is easy now when the board is on the ground, but masking etc. would be difficult when it's time to refresh things. What would happen if I paint to match Andersen's forest green cladding and then spray the penofin over everything? Can I get a greenish penetrating stain to match?
Your house looks simple but nice. I like simple.
You can get a solid color stain to match pretty much any color. I don't think it would hold well over the Penofin though--it would be hard for the solid color to grab onto the wood.
Personally I don't like windows with no trim. My house, and most of the houses in my neighborhood, have Andersens with no trim and fake shutters. I really don't like it. Think of the face of the house like the face of a woman. The windows are the eyes. They look better with a little makeup (trim). Makes them stand out just a little bit.
Same thing with the other trim--it "outlines" the major shape of the house. I suppose you could do a color on just the roof trim and natural everywhere else. It would make the roof stand out, but I think it would look weird. There's not enough going on with your house to break the elements apart like you can with a highly decorated house, a Victorian "Painted Lady" for example. I would suggest either doing all the trim or none of it.
What is the setting for the house? City, country? Landscape features like trees, rocks, desert? Are there neighbors? How are their houses finished?
The Penofin has a tint to it, so I wouldn't apply it over the solid stain either. You can rent a sprayer to apply the stain and the Penofin. It sounds like you're worried about the extra effort masking edges off or cutting in. It's really not that bad. You might save yourself a couple/few hours but in the grand scheme does it really matter? It's more important that the house look good and function well. IMO.
Thanks for the reply. One neighbor has 50 cars, the folks across the street live in a bus...so I'd rather not fit into the neighborhood. Good news is, I'll be far enough into the woods not to see either. As you can deduct, the setting is woods. The south and eastern exposures will be cleared wide open though. If I trim the windows I wouldn't be sure whether to go for a match or a contrast. Our current home (all vinyl) has white windows, green trim, clay siding and that looks pretty nice, but I'll never use vinyl again. It makes the whole thing feel cheap.
I know what you mean about vinyl. It's what's on my house and I hate it. As you can tell by my screen name I'm more of a wood guy.
Since you're in the woods I guess you're free to choose whatever colors you like.
Paint companies all have color collections that some pro has already decided look good together. I usually go for one of the "historical" collections because the colors have withstood the test of time.
If you can find one with a color similar to the wood tone you're looking for, they will suggest other colors--use the one more similar in tone for the trim, the one that contrasts for the front door and maybe the garage doors or the shutters if you had them.
One thing about vinyl that looks cheap is that the corner boards are usually 4". If you notice older houses the corner boards are often at least 5" or 6", sometimes much more. The trim is alluding to the structure of the house, and skinny trim implies a skinny structure. If you could bump up your corner boards to 1x6's I think you'd like the difference. Same thing with the roof trim, I'd bump it up a size and add a shadow board. Small change but it's what makes a house feel like a home.
I agree about the trim size. You can't tell in the pdf, but there will be a 1x3 shadow board as well. Come to think of it, painting all this roof trim will likely be a whole lot faster than doing all the brake metal on my current home (not for you experts of course).
Currently I am showing a 4x trim around the windows, but I think it would be easier to skip this and bring the clapboards in to the window casing.
I agree with others here in urging you NOT to skimp on the trim. 1x5 was the standard for many years, and the size I think looks best on moderately sized homes. The attached picture might give you some ideas regarding trim. It shows 1x5 with a traditional 2x sill, which slopes at a 10-degree angle to shed water. Note that there is NO apron under the sill. In my opinion, the apron inhibits the sill's ability to function as a drip edge.
Note also how the pictured house has a trim board that visually separates the siding on the main floor from the siding within the gable. I think that you could do something similar on your house -- maybe go with shingles in the gable, for example. Varying texture like that helps to break up the monotony of large expanses.
I also agree that the corner boards should be 1x5 or 1x6 at the minimum; 5/4 looks a little nicer. Make sure that each leg of the corner is equal in width (you might have to rip the boards to achieve this).
BTW, I think you might have your terms confused; the "casings" are the trim elements at the head and sides of the window.
Edited 4/6/2007 6:31 pm ET by Ragnar17
use 5/4 trim, it will help protect the end butts,and look better too. 1x5 with a 1x4 butted to it to make up corners, makes a perfectly equal sided corner board (1" plus 3 1/2" = 4 1/2" = 1x5).
Geoff
Thanks, that's good sense.
To the poster with the sloped 2x2 sill; how does that marry to a vinyl window? Also, what is the detail at the top of the windows that creates that extra shadowline?
Regarding eave and rake construction. My current house is vinyl/brake metal. I framed the eaves and rake with 2x members on the rafter tails or outlooks. F-channel and J-channel were used to support the soffit materials, and brake metal trim nailed to the 2x lumber. How is this typically done with cedar? I'll have a 12" overhang at the rake, and an 18" overhang at the eaves. Would I support the fascia board directly on the rafter tails, or use redundant 2x members there? Do I run a ledger on the house and use short pieces of soffit, or do I put transverse 2x4s at each rafter and run long soffit boards the other way. Any pictures would be so very helpful. Thanks again.
To repeat post #13
"Regarding eave and rake construction. My current house is vinyl/brake metal. I framed the eaves and rake with 2x members on the rafter tails or outlooks. F-channel and J-channel were used to support the soffit materials, and brake metal trim nailed to the 2x lumber. How is this typically done with cedar? I'll have a 12" overhang at the rake, and an 18" overhang at the eaves. Would I support the fascia board directly on the rafter tails, or use redundant 2x members there? Do I run a ledger on the house and use short pieces of soffit, or do I put transverse 2x4s at each rafter and run long soffit boards the other way. Any pictures would be so very helpful. Thanks again."
Any input?
bump...
Any carpentry textbook will illustrate how to frame you basic soffit/rakeoverhang assembly.
As for the 2x on the rafter tails, We always put one on, it supports the roof deck better, especially when your doing roof trusses, and your guttter guy likes the extra wood in there.
Good enough for me, that's the way I planned on proceeding but I needed some encouragement to use the 2x. The gutters is a whole different animal...I don't want any but haven't found a good way to address the concentrated water from valleys. Gutters just don't look good with natural cedar. I may build a soldered copper box within the overhang at these valleys with a downspout, and let the rest of the roof drip.
In period work, windows were built around a solid 2x8 sill set at a 10-degree angle. On the inside, the sill was capped with the stool, which provided a stop for the bottom rail of the bottom sash.
Obviously, modern windows (vinyl or otherwise), are not built this way. But to achieve this look, I'll sometimes nail on a piece of 2x to simulate a sill. Typically, the sill extended about 1-3/4" to 2" beyond the sheathing, so you could rip this out of a 2x3, or get a few of them out of a 2x6, etc. In my experience, a good way to attach this faux sill it by setting it with a number of 2-1/2" finish nails, followed up by a couple of 3" countersunk screws.
The extra trim element you see in the picture is just a drip cap. The ones in the picture are probably about 2-1/2" deep, and sit on top of the 1x head casing. They're sloped on the top to shed water (just like the sill). If you buy a drip cap from a mill shop, it usually has a little fin on the top; the course of siding butts against this so that no other flashing would be required.
The photo also shows a small piece of trim just under the drip cap. It's probably a 3/4" x 7/8" cove. Many houses from this time period also had a small bed mold, but this would require something deeper than a 2-1/2" drip cap to accommodate it.
If you are going to choose Andersen instead of Marvin because of price, then take a look at Marvin's Integrity line. Fiberglass exterior and wood interior. Much better looking and the price falls in line with Andersen's 400 line and cheaper than the Tilt Wash. Also the exterior is more historically correct.
I just built a house and put cedar bevel siding on it. Are you using clear?, or knotty grade? The clear stuff sure is pretty exept for the cost. I used knotty, something called STK, which cost $2 psf. I also used cedar for everything else too. Soffitt,fascia, rake, window and door trim. My siding was 3/4" thick, so I used 5/4 trim, which worked out just about flush with the siding. Since I was also the painter,and wanted to keep things simple, I stained everything with the same stain, on saw horses before it was nailed up, with a roller.