The Sun Is A Cruel Master

So now it's on to the first floor of the south side, which is even more sun-thrashed than the tympanum, and for the health of the house I can't put any repairs in this area off until later. A lot of the work the contractor left undone [see Journal] involves the trim on this part of the house, either new pieces that were left off or old pieces that were supposed to have been replaced. Some of the old trim has been so ravaged by the sun that it has the consistency of stale cornbread; you could drive a nail, or for that matter a sharpened pencil, right through it with your hand.

To the left is a typical problem I face: five different pieces, each out of alignment with the others. The two flat pieces on the bottom aren't even the same size, and most of the pieces are too spongy to hold a screw. I've already managed to pull them into a somewhat better alignment with a few screws and shims, but now I must consolidate the spongy pieces by soaking them with liquid epoxy, a process I hope to getting around to explaining one fine day, God willing and the river don't rise. Then I will restore the original profiles of the trim with epoxy putty. I'll never be able to make the bottom edges of the bottom pieces align, but at least the result will be vastly improved cosmetically. More importantly, it will be sound, stable and weather-tight.