Polling The Bloggers

Yesterday I stumbled on to this site that hosts polls. I remembered that Nick over at Pigeon Point Project used to a do a weekly poll and it was a lot of fun, so I thought I resurrect the idea. Nick, if you feel I’m usurping your Polling Authority, say the word and I will gladly bow-out. Josh mentioned in a comment that those were in the early days of HouseBlogs and so a lot of current house bloggers may not be familiar with it. The poll questions were usually house related in some fashion. Very simple. You just make a selection and vote. You’re only allowed to vote once in a 7 day period.

My first thought was to just do a single poll for fun and not do a weekly poll. As Nick mentioned, it’s hard to come up with a new question week after week after week. After thinking about it over-night though, I started to think it might be fun. It may not happen every week, so we’ll see how it goes. What I’ll do is post a poll on my site on Saturday. You will have 1 week to vote, and then I’ll post the results the following Sunday for everyone to see.

If you missed yesterday’s poll question, click here to vote. You have until Friday the 18th. I now realize I made yesterday’s question in haste. My apologies to any Four-Square, Greek Revival, Prairie Style, Brownstone, or Row House fans out there for leaving your house style off the list. I’m sure there are other styles I forgot as well, but the converted missile silo is on there for all you people living in converted missile silos.

In other news….

I’ve actually set a goal and achieved it. This sort of thing rarely happens, so it’s kind of hard to believe. The goal was to paint the attic gable and the trim around the front stained glass window by Sunday and I actually did it! Wonders never cease.

The attic gable was no fun at all. For those not familiar with it, the attic gable has fish-scale shingles on it and it is waaaaaay up at the top of the house. There are three of them on the house, one on each side and a front gable. I think the technical term for them is “pent roof enclosed gable”. Each gable has a small window on it. I was able to do the side gable by hanging out the window.

I had thought that the front gable was wider than the side gables, but now I’m not so sure. I think it may taller but the width seems to be the same. The universe bestowed me with a 6’ 4” arm span so I’m able to reach about 90% of the shingles by hanging out the window. For those last few on the outside corners I use a clamping device that screws on to a broom stick handle. I bought the device at Sherwin Williams. It’s pretty simple. One end has threads that will screw on to a broom stick, or paint roller extension handle. The other end has a clamp on it. I clamp on the scraper to first scrap the shingles and a paint brush to paint them. It works surprisingly well.

I still have the tiny little gable up at the top of the house to do. I want to get that next week. It is a white-knuckle experience to climb up on the roof. I was up there once before to remove the asbestos shingles. I get up there by putting a ladder on the porch roof. Climbing the ladder isn’t a problem. Making the step from the ladder to the roof is. My palms are sweating just thinking about it.

The face of little gable has more fish-scale shingles on it. They will all need to be scraped, primed, and painted. I’m thinking of making a day of it so I only have to go up there once. I’ll put all the supplies in a backpack and pack a lunch. I can go up, scrape and prime, then eat lunch and let the primer dry. After lunch I’ll take in the sites from the high vantage point of the roof. Snap some pictures, of course. Maybe I’ll scrap a little mold off the roof shingles if I see any. After a while I’ll paint and then climb back down. Should be fun.


Almost!


This is what I started with


The whole gable was spider central


Gratuitous Attic Shot


Homer Simpson on achieving goals: All my life I've had one dream: to achieve my many goals.