The siding for the cabin has been an ongoing project for quite a few months. The first issue with it was simply deciding what type of siding to use. We really didn’t want to use T-111 as siding if we could avoid it at all. It is just sort of a cheesy, cheap material (that’s still sort of expensive) and to me it is just not the style aesthetically that I would prefer. So we looked into ordering various types of siding online, but the cost to ship something like ipe siding was more than the siding itself!

This cabin needs some siding!

So we were back to trying to find materials on the island. We have seen a few of the older style Puerto Rican houses with horizontal lap siding and we liked how this looked. A rustic sort of style that would go good on a cabin hidden in the jungle. So then the question was where to buy it, and indeed if it could be found anymore. It was not at Home Depot, National or any of the closeby hardware stores. We found one place listed in San Juan, but to save our sanity we would really prefer not to have drive there (but if need be we were trying to steel ourselves for it).

You have arrived at Comerical Toro! Woohoo

After a treasure hunt of sorts with clues from one hardware store and friends to try this or that, we finally ended up at Comercial Toro in Cabo Rojo. This is probably where we should have started for anything wood related. In fact, all the wood from the old wood house was marked from 1990/Comercial Toro. They mill some stuff and also pressure treat the wood themselves. It’s a huge facility!

With the chanfles in Cabo Rojo

We found out that in Spanish they call these boards chanfles or in English drop siding. We ordered up a bunch (hopefully enough) and they delivered them in a few days. Then the prep work came. Before we could put up the siding we needed to put in all the windows and also the trim and paint everything.

Piles to be painted

Trim and siding

Britton installing trim while a turkey inspector pecks around

Finally this week we began putting on the first few boards of actual siding! Exciting! It’s looking pretty good too! There’s a learning curve to all of this, so Britton is starting from the back and working his way to the front. The really challenging part will be the “tall side” of the house where there is no deck and it is about 20 feet off the ground. We may need Waldemar-the-Fearless’s help on that part!

First few rows of siding on the back

And then a few more!

Otherwise things are going well. When we’re not working on the cabin we’ve been playing music and hanging out with friends. Life’s good.

Went to see our friend’s band, Superluna, debut at Pool’s Bar

And stopped by Step’s Beach for a bit