Taking a Backseat

Everything seems to be taking a backseat to the house painting this week. I’ve had 3 days in a row of 6 or 7 hours on a ladder of straight prepping and painting, and this after going in to work for 4 or 5 hours. I was supposed to go through the apartment tonight to see how well the exiting tenant cleaned it. I really don’t want to look, so I blew that off. The new tenant is out of town until the 26th, so I can deal with what ever needs to be dealt with about the apartment this weekend.

I was supposed to go to The Splinter Group meeting tonight, but I totally blew that off. I hadn’t intended to go anyway, but it doesn’t matter because I completely spaced it. There was a message on the machine from a friend asking me if I needed a ride and that’s when it hit me that tonight was the night. The group meets at 7 and I was still on the ladder at 6:30, so even if I wanted to go there was no way I was going to make it.

But it’s all been worth it….

I’ve got one coat on everything except the first floor trim, and it looks pretty damn cool, if I do say so myself. I was too pooped and hungry to get a photo. The first floor trim is going to need some major paint removal. I have 2 big corbels with inset sunbursts, lots of corner trim, some water table, and the trim around the big stained glass window. The stained glass window trim is in really bad shape. The wood can be salvaged but it needs a lot of work.

The trim forms a big arc around the window and is made up of three pieces of wood and it all needs to go back to bare wood. The window itself needs a lot of work. There are 41 pieces of stained glass and the putty looks to be original and is just in horrible shape. Ideally I would redo all the putty but I don’t see that happening this summer. I’m going to do a band-aid fix for now and tackle it next summer.

For now, though, it feels really, really good to have fresh paint on that siding. The house looks so, so, so, so much better.