Friday, September 23, 2011

Painting the West end of the house


As I was preparing to paint the side of the house, I looked down to see this gal/guy? Hmmm, whadayathink? Think it has a stinger? I don't see one, but I was careful not to step on it. This is NOT a honeybee, btw.


So, this is what I was painting. This side of the house will someday have a screened in room attached to it. And if we would have put siding on the house, we'd just have to take it off when we put on the room. So we went with something called T-1-11. It's a wood product and has to be preserved.



It has grooves in it, somewhat similar to what car siding would look like. We went back and forth all summer...paint...stain....paint...stain. Our neighbor, backhoe man, said for his wood on his house he put a mixture of half and half, linseed oil and turpentine. He explained that back in the day when contractors used to keep their wooden ladders in the back of their pick-ups, that's what they'd use to keep them from falling apart. I used a paintbrush to do all of the grooves first, and I painted this bottom half on Wednesday.


Looks pretty good huh? Well, you can see how high up it is to do the top half by the height of the ladder.


But nothing to worry about, scaffolding man, who is now ladder man, (my Dad) came over to give me a false sense of security by holding the ladder while I painted the top half. It worked. He did say he'd catch me on the bounce. Which means I'm gonna hit the ground first....geesh. Sorry about the butt shot. We put the roller pan on top of the green ladder so I could roll the wood, after I brushed in the grooves.


Mom brought dinner over, and when she said it was time to get back to work, Dad suggested she paint this! Good thinking Dad. (I'll show you what "this" is later. It'd be easier to show you in pics when it's finished, rather than try to describe)


When I was climbing that green ladder, I was a bit nervous. It's the tallest 'regular' ladder we have and this side of the yard has a huge slant to it. Plus it's still a bit soft as the grass hasn't completely come through yet. At least it isn't the mud bog it was a month ago.



That green ladder was nuthin! Nuthin I tell ya!


And yes I was a bit nervous....

and when I was painting this part I was flat out scared! I was.

When I painted the section right before this one, I looked down. Mistake. Do NOT look down. So when I got to this part, I knew it was higher than the section before, when I looked down. I did not look down here, but I stopped when I had a few more steps to go and said, "I gotta come down I can't do this." Dad said, "OK, I'll do it." Me. "You are not doing it, you wanna wrench your knees even worse." (he just had knee replacement surgery in December and is going to therapy for the other knee) So I stood there a minute, got my wits about me, and climbed on up. And I ended up painting it all with a brush because I was climbing up and down just to reach the green ladder with the pan on it.


And viola', it's done!!!! YEEEAAAAA~I have been dreading doing this all summer.

But now, the wood is ready for the weather. Good thing too because I didn't even have everything put away when the rains came.

Cindy Bee

1 comment:

  1. hEY IT LOOKS GREAT AND PROUD OF YOU FOR GOING THAT HIGH!
    HIGHER THEN I WOULD EVER GO FOR SURE!
    THE LANDSCAPING LOOKS GREAT AS WELL::::SAW IT THE OTHER NIGHT
    KEEP GOING IT WILL GET DONE
    THE CUZIN GLORIA

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