Do It Yourself – Affix Shingles to Roof or Side of House
Shingles are the ideal siding material for do-it-yourselfers. Unlike huge sheets of plywood, or long floppy strips of siding, shingles are easy for one person to handle.
They’re easy to put up and easy to fit around doors and window trim. And if you make a mistake with a shingle, it’s no disaster. Just throw it away and try again with another.
About the only drawback to shingles is that you have to handle so many of them that the job can get boring after a while. One solution to this problem is to work some fancy-butt shingles into your job. This will make the job – and the finished look of your home – more interesting.
What are fancy-butt shingles? They’re regular high-quality shingles with the bottom edges, or butts, cut to special profiles. A variety of designs is available, so you should be able to find a style that suits your tastes. If not, you can try your hand at making your own.
Fancy-butts are sometimes used for the full run of a house. More often, however, they are employed as a design accent, maybe on a gable or just above a row of windows all installed at the same level. A lot of people also use them inside the home.
Using them as an accent keeps your cost down – fancy butts obviously cost more than standard shingles. And it also keeps the design from overpowering your house, or making it look like something out of a fairy tale.
Planning. The key to good work with fancy-butt shingles is to plan the design out ahead of time. Decide on the pattern you want, where you want to put it, and how many rows you want to install. The best place to develop a plan is on paper.
If you can, take a photo of the area you want to shingle, then blow it up to a convenient scale. You can then experiment with tissue paper overlays, drawing on scale-sized shingles to see how they look. If you don’t want to work with a photo, just make up a simple drawing, to scale.
Of course you’ll need to know what kinds of shingles are available, and their sizes. You can get this information from the manufacturers (see below for names). While you’re at it, ask for a set of installation instructions. These will help you with your planning.
What happens when you get to the fancy-butt section of the job? No problem. Ready-made fancy-butt shingles normally come packed in cartons that will cover about 30 square feet. Detailed installation instructions come in the carton.
Fancy-butt sources. If you like, you can make your own fancy-butt shingles, starting with top-quality resawed and rebutted shingles. First, you’ll have to rip them all to the same width, then cut their butts to the desired pattern. For straight cuts, it’s best to work with some kind of jig or template to assure uniformity and to speed the cutting process. A band saw is best for curved cuts, although a saber saw can do the job.
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