Exterior

After another full week, things are looking much, much better.  The front is almost completely done, as is the west side.  We finally picked the accent color, and the front dormer is the first area to have all the colors together in one place.  I stripped down the peeling paint around the front door and even started the door itself.  Ultimately, we plan on staining the door and sidelights.

Porch ceiling, with only a few touch-ups left

Front window trim painted

Remember how the front windows used to look? Not to mention Chloe...

A full-day project! (trim not painted here yet, but note the accent color above)

The old purple door

A complete paint job! (at least what you can see...)

And the scaffolding has been moved around the corner for more rafter tails

Now it's hard to believe we lived with this color for so long...

This is getting ridiculous.  The scaffolding moved over to the edge of the garage, straddled the stairs, grew one leg to reach a lower stair, angle-braced itself against a concrete wall and extended itself by 8 feet…all to reach the front of the porch gable.  Given that the bottom of the scaffold is a good 7′ above sidewalk level, it made much more sense than trying to do this with a ladder.  Not good for those afraid of heights!  (the careful observer will notice that I also ripped out one of the rotten posts to make way for the structure.)

Crazy, growing scaffolding

All of the trim paint on the dormers is done, with the exception of one more coat for the west dormer.   With the fading of summer, I’ve started focusing on the areas that will be the most exposed to rain.  The fourth dormer, in the back of the house, is likely going to get neglected for one more year.  It’s not visible from anywhere, so it’s easy to defer.  Too easy.

We hired a young kid to help out with the painting, and it has really made things go so much faster.  I can now work on prepping areas and then have him follow-up with the painting.  He’s cheap, so even with his help, we are going to be coming out at only a fraction of what it would have cost to have someone else paint our house.

West-facing dormer, ready for primer

East-facing dormer, with finished trim...imagine how fun it is to get in there for the 4 sets of rafter tails on each side

Trim done on top, body done below

I put in 5 or 6 hours today, and I was able to do the eaves in the front left corner, as well as add a second coat to part of the porch ceiling and around the front door.  It’s weird…this paint looks so good after a single coat that in some areas I’m forcing myself to do a 2nd just out of some outdating painting principles that have been embedded into my brain for my entire life.  I mean, seriously, if you’re not getting up on a ladder to scrutinize it, you would never guess that that was only one coat.

And this picture also shows the rafter tail ends that we are going to have to lop off.  These are the only two remaining on the house, so we are reluctantly going to make them match the rest of the tails.  The ends are rotten anyway, so there’s not much of a choice.

End of the tails

Not a ton of time spent on the painting this weekend, but I did get some body color onto the front dormer and some trim color onto the rafter tails.  Every bit is noticeable, so it’s one of those projects that makes it a little easier to keep motivated.

Porch ceiling, other rafter tails can be seen on left side

Front dormer blends in now

Today I built the much-needed scaffolding, which will really help me (safely) get up under the eaves to finish up the rafter tails.  I was able to build the entire deck from the pallet that our clawfoot tub shipped in, thereby justifying it taking up space in the garage for the last 5 years.  Combined with low lumber prices, I was able to build the entire thing for about $18!

I used bolts to attach the deck and angled support, so that I can break it down as necessary to move it around the different sides of the house.  This was so much cheaper than renting scaffolding the rest of the summer.  I think the pictures don’t give a sense of the scale, as it’s 10′ wide and a full 8′ tall.  The last picture is the scaffolding that my dad and I built 9 years ago when he helped us paint our old house.  I simply made it a little bigger to reach this house’s eaves.

View from inside the house

Beautiful, beautiful scaffolding

As seen from the porch

The inspiration

So much for the uniqueness of our house  Today I noticed that a house a mere two blocks away and that I’ve passed by thousands of times is basically the same as ours.  Like the other twin, it sits on a flat lot, so it doesn’t give the same “street feel” as ours, meaning it didn’t jump out at us as a copy.  It is very interesting to see how each house has the same basic plan but varies widely in the details.  Both of the twins have single-gabled dormers on the side, while ours has the unusual double-gable.  Since both twins have multi-paned windows, it makes us wonder if ours did, too.  I suspect not, since our remaining original windows in our house were not, but many of our windows were stripped out in the 60’s and replaced with non-opening glass.  8/2009: we found another look-alike.

Front view of twin #2

The windows are very different than ours

All in all, I’m really happy with where we ended up this week, considering only six days were spent painting…virtually all solo.  Unfortunately, I have to go back to work tomorrow, which will slow things tremendously.  Other than a handful of areas that need additional repairs, all of the ground floor body has been painted!

Front, with the foundation painted

Porch ceiling

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (and Ginger)

Body color all done on west side

I decided today that it would be wise to rent some scaffolding as I get more into the details of this paint job.  I had Stephanie snap a few photos to demonstrate the nightmare of our west side lot line.  Not only there only about 10 feet between houses, there is a substantial elevation difference that makes ladder placement difficult.  And I haven’t even said anything about the vegetation, either.

Painting the eaves

Getting that last bit of siding

The sprayer came out today for the foundation and the porch ceiling.  The foundation needed to be sprayed, since most of it is an incredibly rough texture that couldn’t possibly be brushed or rolled, and the porch ceiling would have been too much of a PITA to brush, not to mention dangerous without scaffolding.  So I thought this was a good time to break out the new-in-box sprayer that we had bought off ebay 7 years ago when we were all jazzed up about some painting projects that we ended up doing by hand anyway.  It’s been dragged along to three different houses in the hopes that we might one day actually use it.

So today was the day, and we were happy to find that it worked.  But then I remembered what a pain it is to mask for spraying.  It takes hours and hours and makes the spraying kind of anticlimatic.  I’ve really been enjoying the straightforward simplicity of brushing…no masking tape, no paper, no plastic…just pick up a brush and start painting!

In addition to the foundation and porch ceiling, Stephanie was able to paint most of the back of the ground floor today.  I forgot to grab a picture before the sun set, so I’ll add it later.

Porch

Freshly painted foundation. Look for the bonus Ginger image.