A Brief Hiatus

My painting efforts have been put temporarily on hold as I am out of town on assignment! I've been spending several days providing quality control for a construction project in the Verde Valley of Arizona. It's been a tremendous experience although we've had blustery weather and even a brief snow flurry yesterday afternoon.

Painting will resume when we return from our vacation week after next. In the interim I have photos of the cedar chest and spool chest that we received from Steve's parents. As they are moving to a smaller home, they passed these along to us. The cedar chest makes a lovely coffee table and the spool chest will hold little odds and ends.

The spool chest is in the dining room. I think I'll put my silver tableware in the small drawers.

O' the Joy!

Finally, finally, brush in hand, I got to experience the joy of coating my sanding, scraping, patching with paint! Two coats. (Well, four coats on the window frame because I had the colors backwards initially. C'est la vie.)


Of note: While I've been painting the rose garden is producing wonderful colors of its own. The Saint Patrick is blooming beautifully.

Daily, new blooms arrive on the hollyhocks.

What's 'Clem looking at...?

...The lizard on the fence. Can you see it?

When Do We Actually "Paint?"

Well, not yet but soon. Soon. I've got three gallons of primer stashed in the trunk of the car. I need to go back to the Depot and get a couple of gallons of the "self-sealing" masonry paint (I had to check the colors, first). This time next week I will hopefully be reporting that the painting of the outbuilding (also known as the garage) is complete. After that, I plan to move on to the patio. I'll tackle the house proper after we return from Canyonlands.

Steve replaced a bit of rotten wood atop one of the supports on the patio. The wood he replaced was pretty much dust and fell apart in his hand. It now looks worse than it is, as Steve did a wonderful job on the repair. I'll prep, patch and sand this before painting, of course.

Neglect Not The Garden...

Today, the garden was calling to me. I'd become so involved in my scraping and sanding and patching and such that I'd been neglecting the Bermuda grass that was starting to take over the beets. I spent the better part of the afternoon pulling undesirables and clearing off my potting table. A new border went in around two sides of the asparagus patch and old twigs and such went into the trash.

Manuela, our mail carrier, likes grapefruit! Huzzah! I spoke with her today and she is quite keen to take some of the citrus off my hands. What she doesn't consume herself her co-workers are happy to have so I shall pick some and leave them on the porch for her tomorrow.

Scraping... Scraping...

Tuesday. The front gable is not so readily scraped. As the sun never actually shines on this surface, the paint is in poor condition but not baked to peeling as it is on the back. Consequently, it requires a lot more elbow grease to make headway. I am getting off the big chunks but will resort to the sander for the balance.

The framing around the garage door is marginally more cooperative. I had to prune back a large sage to get at the trim and soffit. More patching is on the horizon. Tomorrow, Friday, I shall purchase my primer.

Wednesday I took a break from scraping and moved to the back porch where I proceeded to take down strings of lights, wind chimes, the thermometer, and the bottle opener. Stray nails were pulled, and all manner of "crap" was relocated to the vegetable garden pending disposal or permanent relocation.

I cleaned out the rock pile, too. (What? Doesn't everyone have a rock pile?)

Running from Mr. Sun

I start on the west side of the garage, then as the sun moves in the sky on past noon, I change to the east side. Today was the trim facing Matt and Denise's back yard. It was in poor condition. Scraping, sanding, filling. Pete and Babs came out to greet me then flopped on the grass completely uninterested in my process.

Sitting and standing on the fence, I was easily able to accomplish my task. I then moved on to the peeling paint on the lower part of the east wall. I plan to place crushed stone along the base of the structure here. Keep the mud down but allow for drainage. Definitely going to need primer in this area.

Preserving the Past

We have one of those somewhat rare homes in our neighborhood in that we have retained the original floor plan. (We have the as-built architectural diagrams mounted on foam core stored in a portfolio.)

The roof is no longer the original. Not long after we moved in over eleven years ago we replaced the roof (rotting cedar shake), with fire-retardant dimensional shingles. Some doors, including the garage door, have been replaced, too. But structurally, the house stands as it did when it was built in 1941.

As I scraped paint I uncovered the original cedar gables. Starting on the south side of the garage I revealed the worst of it, I think. Blasted day after day by the relentless desert sun the wood is a bit worse for the wear but I am going to be able to salvage rather than replace it.

I discovered a "filler" product that resists shrinking and fills in the gaps and cracks beautifully. It is intended for exterior use, is sandable and paintable, and I think it will work out just fine. Some fresh nails and a bead of sealant around the edges and I will be in business.


I'm going to give it some time to fully cure and shrink and crack (although it's not supposed to), then apply additional material as needed and complete by sanding. After I've sanded I'll wash down all the work areas, apply a primer and then the "painting" part of painting will begin!