Truth.... isn't it strange?

" Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities . Truth isn't "

Mark Twain

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

house painting

So, back to coaching on painting the outside of your house. Save yourself some big bucks and learn a few things about your dwelling. My oldest daughter who lives far away from me is still working on hers in her spare time but she is learning lots about the care of her first home and the paint job is lookin' great!! Since I'm not there it has been an eye opener to see the results of my instructions and what others  actually hear . I overestimated her dedication in scraping and prepping . I kind of thought she would do over- kill rather than being timid in that area. Wrong ..... so what happened was that after priming and then doing a little painting, air pockets developed where the crappy old paint hadn't been scraped off. Not all paint needs scraping but when the first paint job was bad or they used cheap paint ..... or it wasn't primed properly ( which , I'm sure was the case here ) the paint never did adhere very well to begin with. Therefore more paint over it is a losing proposition. It must be scraped and primed ( raw wood needs an oil based primer ) before starting the paint job.

So , she had to go back and scrape again but now it is lookin' good. The painting is the easiest part. I told her in the beginning " prep is just plain ugly!! and it keeps getting uglier till you get to the painting part " This is where you find out what your made of .... do you persevere ? Are you a patient person? Determined? I say , get after it and love it when your done!!

2 comments:

  1. Some tips I learned while doing the prep work.
    1. Power washing the house before scraping will cut the time in half. The paint comes off in pieces instead of slivers.
    2. Sand with a stone that fits on your drill for the paint that doesn't want to come off.
    3. If you are OCD or a perfectionist ask for help knowing you will most likely go back over their work. :-)

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  2. I'll be posting pics soon of the house . It is looking gorgeous!!

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