I probably shouldn't have but..

[hillsdown]

I ordered this bird house, I just fell in love with it and it reminds me a little of our home. It might be to nice to put up outside though. I wish I was talented enough to build these myself..

Bird house

An old pic of our house before we had the new cedar shakes put on.

Here is one from last summer but it is very small .

I just hope Mr. HD doesn't have a fit as we are supposed to be watching our pennies with the economy the way it is now. :help:

 

[HOSS]

Very Nice! Beautiful house and bird house!

 

[alacattleman]

pretty cabin...... mine aint much bigger than the birdhouse ;-)

 

[Just_a_girl]

HD,

Adorable birdhouse, but the big one is beautiful!


that reminds that I need to go fill my feeders. :lol2:

 

[LoveMoo11]

both of them are beautiful houses! A lot of work must have gone into both

 

[hillsdown]

Thanks everyone , but I wasn't fishing for compliments on our house as we were lucky enough to stumble upon it . It is everything we wanted but we didn't build it or anything like that so the credit goes to the previous fellas that built it.. ;-)

As for the bird house I re read the dimensions and it is way bigger than I thought; it is 24"L x 16"H x 15"W..That makes it a little more complicated to mount it as we are in a really windy area being on top of a hill..I just thought it was neat with the dormers and the two levels of the roof like ours is..I don't even know what kind of birds it is for as it didn't specify.. I might have a house full of crows..

Will post a pic of it when it arrives and I have it in place...

On a side note it is the last day of April and is snowing here.. :???:

 

[bigbull338]

i dont blame id ordered that bird house to.an besides it does match your lovely home.your hubby shouldnt be upset esp since it matches your house.

 

[mnmtranching]

Thats a purty fancy birdhouse, and looks kinda spendy. Maybe to nice to put out and have the starlings and sparrows crap all over it. But I think you done good, nice house. :nod:

 

[I luv herfrds]

I like them both.

 

[cfpinz]

How long do cedar shakes last in your part of the world? Are they very common?

 

[hillsdown]

How long do cedar shakes last in your part of the world? Are they very common?

If applied properly and proper width and length of shake are used they will last forever. There are very common here ,especially if you have a log home. My parents and my sisters home are just normal bungalows and they have cedar shakes as well as the house I grew up in did after we added on and renovated. The original shakes on the house were the size of shingles so they curled and were very weather beaten . That is why we replaced them and now our roof should last a very long time ,barring a tornado or something horrible like that..

Shakes are more costly than normal shingles but are pretty much the same price as ceramic.

 

[cfpinz]

Thanks. The people around here that I've talked to that have had cedar shakes all hated them. They're gorgeous but they don't seem to last around here. We've got a cedar cape cod house with asphalt shingles, when they go bad I'm putting a tin roof on it.

 

[Wisteria Farms]

How long do cedar shakes last in your part of the world? Are they very common?

I was wondering that too....when we built our house we spent our $$ on a few luxuries inside and skimped on the siding...so...its not really "us"...we'd love to change it to cedar lap siding...with our style of house it'll really give it a country/lodgy look but I'm hesitant because I thought we would have to be staining it every couple years...we've got some pretty high peaks..not real easy to get to...

 

[aussie_cowgirl]

That's a really beautiful house HD.

 

[hillsdown]

Thanks Aussie..

Wisteria the actual house is soft pine inside and out and it is a ton of maintenance and costly. It needs to be resealed and stained about every 7-10 years . It is our turn now and we have estimates between 10 and 15 k to do the whole outside. The "hardwood" actually soft pine floors throughout need to be redone as well but I am scared to get an estimate for that as well. I am probably going to push that back for a couple of years as the french doors in the kitchen/dining room desperately need to be replaced .. While I love the home if it is not maintained continually it can turn into a money pit..

The shakes need the least attention on the home.

 

[Wisteria Farms]

You know, HD, we've refinished hardwood floors before and its not that bad a deal...you rent the sander. The worst part is buying the discs...if there's a lot of varnish on the old floor then it tends to "gunk" up the discs pretty bad...but we did it so you might consider giving it a try...

Thanks for the info on the house...and it certainly is beautiful!! We'll probably go ahead and do the cedar lap siding when its time to redo the vinyl siding that's on ours now....I've just always loved the look...we have a lot of dormers too so it would look similar to yours...

 

[cfpinz]

How long do cedar shakes last in your part of the world? Are they very common?

I was wondering that too....when we built our house we spent our $$ on a few luxuries inside and skimped on the siding...so...its not really "us"...we'd love to change it to cedar lap siding...with our style of house it'll really give it a country/lodgy look but I'm hesitant because I thought we would have to be staining it every couple years...we've got some pretty high peaks..not real easy to get to...

If I ever build another house in this lifetime, it will definately not have cedar siding on it. Around here it needs to be stained every 3 years or so. Our house had a beautiful translucent stain on it when we built it, but we let it go about 5 or 6 years before staining it, got pretty bad looking. Had a friend of mine and his brother pressure wash and stain the house, did it for about 2500 bucks. Told him to use a darker stain, they ended up using one that is more of a paint than a stain. I don't really care for the look but it's holding up better than the stain. When I get fed up with the cedar I'm going to put hardiplank over it. I've seen some that was the same color as cedar and it looked good. I don't have a real good picture of the house but you can get the drift from behind these scragly mutts and the wife's old horse trailer:

 

[backhoeboogie]

How long do cedar shakes last in your part of the world? Are they very common?

Not long at all when the brush fires are around.

On the other hand, there are some cedar posts on the place that were put in sometime before 1880. The old cattle trail from Waco to Weatherford crossed the Brazos just south of me and came thru my place on the upper flood plain. It shows up on an old map. When I cleared the brush above the upper flood plain the you could see the old wagon ruts and I found those posts. I left them.

I like that bird house.

 

[Wisteria Farms]

How long do cedar shakes last in your part of the world? Are they very common?

The old cattle trail from Waco to Weatherford crossed the Brazos just south of me and came thru my place on the upper flood plain. It shows up on an old map. When I cleared the brush above the upper flood plain the you could see the old wagon ruts and I found those posts. I left them.

How cool is THAT!!! I love old things...

 

[Angus Cowman]

How long do cedar shakes last in your part of the world? Are they very common?

Not long at all when the brush fires are around.

On the other hand, there are some cedar posts on the place that were put in sometime before 1880. The old cattle trail from Waco to Weatherford crossed the Brazos just south of me and came thru my place on the upper flood plain. It shows up on an old map. When I cleared the brush above the upper flood plain the you could see the old wagon ruts and I found those posts. I left them.

I like that bird house.

When I was working on a ranch out around Lewellen,Nebraska you could still see the wagon tracks from the old Oregon Trail, it was pretty cool

HD The wife and I love your house