we posed the question as to whether or not we should wrap the redwood around the north side of the house. Nevermind this entailed removing the very same redwood from the north and south side of the house after removing a layer of fiber cement as well as reconditioning all of the wood, the answer was obviously yes.
On Saturday, in beautiful 80 degree weather, we hung the final row in what proved to be the most challenging siding installation to date. The less than 2 foot gap between our house and the dreaded rose trellis meant that any ladder was going to be nearly upright. What that in turn meant was that I was the only one with the stomach to climb said ladder. This led to a three man install team, and of course a new tool was created. One person would brace the ladder from below, pulling it towards the house and dodging various things that I may be dropping from up above (this was mainly Rob). Then another person working from the upstairs windows shuttled the redwood planks out to me on the ladder (this was mainly Jim, Jen carried the torch this weekend). We would get the plank out the window and, with a grip on one side, I would climb the ladder while Jim placed the tool under his side and guided it upward. Once the board was hoisted into place it sat on the tool, which was a long lower case t made out of 2x2 with a plywood spacer screwed onto the horizontal piece, which locked the tool in place allowing Jim to shift into ladder bracing mode from the window when he could reach. From there I would screw the board in, come down and move the ladder to the other side and repeat. All of this translates to something around 1 row/1.5 hr, not part of the original calculations when the thumbs up was given.
We are still happy with our decision to go for it and elated to check another item off the list. Now it's back to the electrical work and various other distractions.

