Porch painting is finished!

 I'm a little behind in this blog.  We did close on the house on the last day of the contract!  So, we are now down to one house!  WOOHOO!  We are still living in one room in the basement, but I'm OK with it.  I know we will someday be upstairs, and right now I'm still feeling the relief of just having one place to keep up.  I had no idea how much stress we were under until it was all over.  And as long as we are moving forward, I'm good.  No deadlines, just moving forward!

So, we were working on porches the last time I posted...and we still are! 

This is the porch I left you with the last time...and you can see it is very close to being finished.

We decided to get all of the painting done before cold weather set in.

 The upstairs balcony seemed to take a long time to finish painting for some reason.  It was a bit chilly out that day, but we think anything this high off of the ground just takes longer.  Don't know why.

  This porch is right off of the upstairs bedroom that everyone is fighting over!

 

 Because of this view!  

All of the porches have this view....but only one bedroom has a balcony.

 We had another warm day so Dave took the afternoon off and we got the final porch painted.

 By the time I finished painting all of these cracks and crevices with a brush, I was DONE PAINTING.  Dave did help paint the crevices and cracks as well.  Then he would roll while I finished.  I'm just tired of painting. After all of the columns, bases, caps, and now porches...I'm a little bit tired of it!  I have a couple of Adirondack chairs I need to paint, and I have been putting it off.  Maybe tomorrow.

 When we were painting this last porch, it was a nice sunny, warm day.  And these Asian beetles were bombarding us.

 They were so horrible that they were flying in the paint buckets, and just everywhere.  We couldn't even sit outside they were so bad.

I'm just glad we got the porches painted.  Now Dave can finish the ceilings and upstairs railing and such on nice days to come.

Cindy

Porches and Columns

 Front view of the East end porches.  Still need to do ceilings and paint decking, but columns are up and it's looking good!

The columns tend to look like they are centered, depending on where you stand.  We've decided not to make an issue out of it.  It is what it is....the window is not centered on the wall.

 

 Standing inside the kitchen looking out was my main concern.  I didn't want to look through a window and see a column when I have this gorgeous view!  No problem.

 I finished painting the last column yesterday!!! YAAAAAY!!!

We'll be working on the ceilings next!  The closer these porches are to being finished, the more anxious I am to move upstairs!  Haven't even started on it!

Cindy

Painting issue

 After painting these porch columns and bases and caps in place, we decided the best thing to do was to paint all of the columns on the unfinished porch we have left.  And put all of the bases and caps on a table and paint them, then touch up any scratches.  It's just too hard painting them in place, and covering everything, to make sure we don't get paint on cement or wood. 

 So Dave braces them to the porch so they won't fall over,

 and roughs them up with a palm sander.

 Then I clean them with a vinegar and water solution,

 and paint them with Latex paint.

   Deeeeep......cleansing.....breaths....because we are so tired of  these things.

 And remember the oil based paint I returned?  Because I didn't like the way the paint looked on the bases and caps...Well here you go.



What do you think...would you be happy with this?  They all turned out this way, and that's not the worst of it.  Dave had a couple of the posts set, and he called me to the porch.
 
 Yup, it's already peeling off.  SO...AFTER MUCH DISCUSSION...because I didn't want to leave it that way and as you can imagine, he's tired of re-doing everything....
 
 he took the oil painted bases and caps off of the porch. 

 

 

 I've been peeling the paint off of all of these so I can re-clean, prime, and paint them. 

 But I am visiting the paint store this afternoon.  This is ridiculous.  I e-mailed them and their response was to call or come in.  I'll be nice, but I want some sort of compensation.
 
What do you think would be fair?

  My first inclination was to have them replace the bases and caps which would be $350.00.  These things cost $50 a pair and I painted 7 pair with their paint.  I already removed the paint from some of them, so my second thought was to have them remove the paint from the rest of them and re-clean, prime and paint them.  But the truth is, they probably won't do either.  What are your thoughts.

 I used this primer that is recommended in the manufacturer's instructions and is expensive.  $20 bills for that little can.  And all of the latex painted bases turned out perfect.

 So he is working on the upper balcony as much as he can, and trying to work around the painting issue

 and I'm trying to get stuff painted so he can get these porches finished. 

 
Someone asked me what our time deadline was to get moved in.  We are moved in!
Our time deadline....to get these porches finished before snow hits!

Cindy

Still working on porches....still

 So here's where we are on the porches. 

 He got all of the ends reinforced....

 And most of the wood decking has been laid.

 Now read carefully.....

first of all.....go to THIS POST about 7-8 pictures down and read the part where it starts out...."The other thing we have actually lost sleep over....."  

Then you will understand this part.

 So, if you look directly down at the corner of the deck in the above pic

 or on the end here, or look in the below pic, you see these three cement beam thingys (pylons?) that go into the ground.  I was here the day they were pouring these.  They are HUGE and long.

 And they are holding this up. 

 That, and these beams which are about to bust...

 If you look closely you can see the cracks and bends in them.  Yes, it is past time to get these porches done. 

 

If the porches go down, this entire end of the house goes down.  

And back to the big beam thingys, well one end settled 3/4 of an inch, as we suspected.  

Did you read the other post mentioned above? It explains it.

 That 3/4 of an inch probably explains this.....

And I've been priming and painting these bases and caps for columns.  One coat of prime, two coats of paint.  I had to move them all inside, because you are supposed to use oil based paint on them.  Well, the paint doesn't dry before the bugs and such get all over them and stick to the paint.  So after the second coat of paint, I had to sand all the bugs off.  Then apply the third coat.  I don't like the way they've turned out, and since I have this many more to go, I took the paint back (the unopened paint) and bought latex.  It's very complicated with the whole column thing. You have to prime the caps with XIM ($20.00 a quart) and then paint them, because they are plastic.  The columns are fiberglass, which require a different primer (cheaper) or you can sand them down.  If you sand the columns down, you can use latex.  If you don't sand them, you have to use oil.  Oil paint sucks.  (that is the blog authors opinion, and not necessarily the opinion of others!)  

Cindy