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Thursday, January 28, 2010

Can't put it off any longer

January 28, 2010
Peoria, AZ

Painting the outside of the house, that is. Actually, painting isn't the problem, it's the preparation that I dread. But, it can't be avoided, so I started. The first step was relatively easy: supplies and tools. I loaded up on masking tape and plastic, and bought a new scraper. I'm a power tool guy, but getting all the loose paint from under the eaves will require a bit of old-school scraping. I started with some other fix-up efforts: installing clips to screw the conduit for the back yard electrical circuits to the foundation (zip-ties attaching the conduit to the gas line for the grill don't survive in the AZ heat), patching some damaged areas in the stucco, moving some paving blocks - anything to avoid the scraping. By Tuesday, I couldn't avoid it any longer, so out came the ladders and up I went. It's slow going, even listening to tunes on the iPod, and dirty (when you're scraping under the eaves, the stuff has no place to go but on you). But, good progress was made: I finished one side and can wrap up the rest in another day.

Yesterday was supposed to be a showery day (parts of the Valley got rain but we didn't), so I "took the day off", but today it's clearing so I'm getting charged up to get the "hard part" over. I suppose that's the way I've learned to tackle most things, by getting the difficult thing done first. Growing up as a picky eater, I always ate the thing I liked the least first and "saved the best for last". In this case, the actual painting should be relatively painless, since we have a pro-quality paint sprayer I'll use for that.

I have a couple of additional tasks to tackle after the scraping and sanding are done. I have to prep the foundation (wire brush) and prime the concrete well, clean and prime the gas lines (galvanized pipe) with Rustoleum, and install some wire mesh under certain parts of the eaves to keep birds out (I found two nests so far). I'll be into the painting by early next week. Since the house has two different colors (body and trim), that'll take two passes. Taking a cue from watching other houses get painted, I'll shoot the trim first, not worrying about overspray but using a narrow-pattern nozzle, then mask that off and shoot the body. Seems like a plan.

In the spirit of complete disclosure, I should note that this phase will only address three sides of the house - the part that "shows". I'm going to do the back of the house as a separate project because I have a lot of work to do to remove all the patio decorations before that area can be done. No matter what, we'll have the whole thing done by the end of February.

1 comment:

Dave Thompson said...

I too hate paint prep. I'd rather do a swap -- I'll dig your ditch if you prep for paint ? There's few things that I hate more than scraping. The trouble is that you never know when enough's enough.

As for saving the best for last, yes, me too. In fact, I'm so predictable that the other day Sandy looked over my plate and told me I was eating in reverse order ... did I also say that I don't mix my intake ? Sheesh.