Side On

I managed to finish the siding project on our house (it looks slightly better than this) and if you can believe this, it only took two days. That has to be a new world record, because as usual, I set out to replace 3-4 boards and ended up replacing at least a dozen. The back of the house gets southern exposure so when you throw in all the wind, snow, and rain, the wood really takes a beating and warps over time. When the wood warps, even slightly, the paint tends to wrinkle and crack, and then it starts to look bad. That's when yours truly has to step in, though it would be preferable to get to it before it gets to that point.

One of the problems I ran into was due to my laziness or cluelessness, or a combination of the two. Last time I painted, which was about 4 years ago, the paint was cracking and chipping off, and rather than properly clean the boards, I simply painted over them, much to the chagrin of my Mentor and the Amazing PR Man. Of course, I paid for my sins because when you paint over paint that's chipping, it all just chips off, anyway. I watched this process occur over the course of a few years and finally I got off my butt and did something about it.

This time around I'll hopefully do it right. Not only did I replace the warped boards, but I got a steel bristled brush and am scraping off the chipped paint. With all the new boards nailed in and the scraping done, I'm ready to paint. I even retrieved the paint and brushes from the basement and am ready to roll, so hopefully it won't take all summer to get this done. Then again, at least two other sides of the house need to be painted, so this could take a while, especially when you add in trim. Oh well, the work of a real-man in training never ends, does it?

Until the next time, thanks for reading, and thanks to Mark Strozier for the pic.