I love house painting, the scorching heat, the big scaffolding, the wild unsupervised children! Actually it's a ranch! Yes! I get to paint the the soffits with a three foot ladder, and since we are rushing our outside chores before it get cold, this is the week it gets done. Cold is a relative term down here. The weatherman keeps saying a frigid cold fronts coming and the night temps will drop to either 38 or 40.
So that means for the first time in my house career I get to paint when it's nice! It's been in the high 70's this week.
The wild unsupervised kid thing still happens though. I was painting yesterday and they were in here singing with their wii with the volume all the way up. Since it was nice the windows were open and the whole block got an ear full.
The other downside of painting is that you are so wiped out there is zero energy left after making dinner to tidy up, so in usual my family fashion the kitchen table is loaded to the gills with, library books, drills, wood glue, caulking, a knitting project etc. The rest of the house follows suit.
So the actual project started a few weekends ago with Robert's part. He replaced six of the plywood soffits and removed about three pounds of caulking. It makes me mad when people do such a bad job of doing things. In one instance we pulled out a piece if caulking two inches thick in the thick part and ten inches long. After we removed it we got out a hammer and with just a couple of whacks the two boards fit right back together. Break out a nail and as good as new. Much easier then trying to fill the hole too.
So Saturday afternoon we started together, Robett scraped the old paints and removed old caulking, I followed behind and caulked it tight. That took about four hours. We are currently only working on the front and one side of the house, the back is basically ready to go and had wood replaced last year. It just needs hit with the paint.
Sunday I headed back out with primer and got all the brush parts, it took about 3 hours. Then I went back and rolled on the soffits.
Monday after getting a late start, I was very stiff and had to get three kids to join me at Home Depot, I got started painting. We went with White for the first time in our lives! Every house we have ever owned but one was white when we moved in, and everyone was promptly painted a grey, green, brown color! I took a good look at the painting though and there were some very tight spaces around the bricks and windows that I did not want to have to paint! So I started with the brush on parts again and only made in across the front. I didn't even get that done since I needed the 100 pound ladder that straddles the bushes. At the end of painting as I was getting off ten ladder by the gas meter I caught a whiff of gas. Lovely. It wasn't a very big leak but still. So I called the gas company while washing out the brushes and we loaded up the car and picked Robert up at work and waited for the gas man. Luckily we didn't sit outside long, unluckily I still had to make dinner.
So today, I get to finsh up! Take two Tylenol and grab your paintbrush! I'll snap some photos later, the kids are bogging the computers and I can't download photos on here.
Coming up next, either insulation or new doors! I don't recommend replacing doors when it's cold out. Been there done that!
