Painting

Yesterday, we painted the yellow rental house a different color.  For about 20 years it had been a horrible yellow color and now it looks more like a newer house in a nice neighborhood.  I had a misconception that we could tape the windows in short order and start painting. About 7 man hours later, we finally broke for lunch.  The actual spraying took about four hours and most of that was climbing up and down the ladder.  I hadn't remembered that each side of the house had a peak that went up about 12 feet.  I also didn't figure that extra in the amount of paint I needed.  I had to go fetch a couple of more gallons to finish.  But, it is done and it looks good. I want to warn you that the blue Scotch Painters tape will not hold up to a sprayer and latex paint.  The masking tape by Duck did and it was about half the price.  Thank god I only bought one roll of the blue crap as a test.  Perhaps inside where you are using roller and a brush it will work but it is inadequate if you are masking windows.

I had spent about two weeks getting the house ready to paint and about another week putting new siding on the north side of the house where time and weather had taken it's toll.  If I had it to do again, I probably would hire a couple of helpers and strip most of the old siding off.  Underneath the fake redwood is a solid clapboard house with siding that while it is ugly, it is pretty solid.  I found some rough redwood trim at Menard's Lumber and it sure took to the new paint well.  In fact it looks much better than the old stuff does.  Oh well, another lesson learned. 

While I was working on the rental house I noticed that one of the porch roofs was leaking.  I got up on the roof and found out that I am darned lucky that it hadn't leaked into the house.  There was even a tree growing in the hole on top.  I used a roll of heavy paper, a five gallon bucket of roofing tar and a five gallon of roof coating to seal it all down.  I will probably have it all replaced in a year or so.  Both of my rental houses need new roofs. 

Today was going to be a slow day I get to spend some time re-organizing the tools here and at the rental house.  When I finish here, I am going to first take Barbara's battery from the Buick to the car parts place and replace it.  I put the charger on it last night and after all night on the charger it was still dead.  New Battery time.  It will probably double the value of the car  but hey, Barb deserves a car that will start and run when she wants it to.  After all the work she did for me yesterday it is the least I can do.

I am concerned that the US Post office  about to go broke and go away.  Instead of trying to find new ways to attract customers, they are just cutting service and raising prices.  I predict that we will soon not have Saturday service. We will have 50 cent letters soon.  The good news is that it really won't hurt Barb and I, I just like to have new mail in the box from time to time. 

Oh well, I made it through a whole blog without excoriating the Republicans and the Democrats.  If those people can't figure out a way to keep the Government up and running, perhaps we need to throw all of them out.  A new crowd can't do any worse that what we have. 

MUD