I Get To Paint the House, Yippee

Now that spring has sprung, I get to embark on the project I mis-timed last year: painting the house. The problem comes in the guise of temperature. Seems exterior house paint doesn’t like being applied when the temperature is in the 80s and above. This gives me a window of opportunity of April and May. Last year taught me that June is too late to even attempt it.

I am hampered a bit by the fact that I’ve never painted the exterior of a house on my own before. I either rented, and wasn’t responsible, or I let my dad do it (he loves this stuff…grew up doing it). With my dad sick, I don’t have an out this time. *sigh*

I’m still prepping the house: scraping off the old paint where it’s weak, sanding, etc. Fortunately, there aren’t too many really bad patches. I did, however, spy an area where the shingles meet the chimney where there seems to be some rot…more than my limited experience deems wise to try to repair on my own. Guess I’ll need to try to find a good roofer to repair that piece and put on some flashing (like it should have had, but doesn’t).

This little project is going to take a few weeks as I try to fit it in with everything else I need to get done. What’s that? My brother can help? Honestly…not a lot. He doesn’t have a lot of time to give. Maybe, once I get the house prepped he’ll be able to paint some on a weekend, but I’m not really counting on it. Knowing that Tess* often does odd jobs and has that nice little hay-burner, I thought she might like to earn a little cash; I asked, but I got nothing but silence. It’s fine that she obviously doesn’t want to do it—it’s not her job—but it would have been nice to at least been told. Heh…youth.

At least once this gets done, I’ll have one less major task on my checklist. This has been a growing cloud for over a year now. Judging by the condition of the wood under the bits of peeling paint, I do need to get this done now before any damage is done.