We have painted our last paint....

The house painting is done!  I love to be able to do one of these posts where months of hard work comes together into something we are really proud of.  I know it's just one side, and there are three more to go and all, but it feels really good to say look what we did!

I apologize for the angle on all of these, but there's only about 9 feet of space before I hit the neighbor's fence, so full-on pictures just aren't happening.  Although I have thought about asking if I could prop up a ladder on his porch....

The storms aren't back on yet, because Kevin is actually going to whip together some combination wood storms.  They will have panels you can put on and remove from the inside.  All of the storms on the house are either in really bad shape or aluminum, so new storms has been a priority.  He is estimating about $50 a storm in materials, so I would expect them to come out around $75-100 because it's home improvement and everything always costs more than you think it will.  Although we are beginning to factor that into our budgets.  We were originally going to reuse the panes on the aluminum ones, but who knows, we might have to buy or make some new ones.  

In that picture above, you can see part of the windows we refinished last summer.  I like the white and gray with the shellac.  

Here's a close-up of where the trim meets the clapboard.  The Duramax paint is a winner.  It coats so well and looks great. It's really thick, so when it dries, everything looks smooth.  

Kevin had to get on the roof to do the very peak, because our ladder couldn't quite make it up that high.  The roof is a pretty steep angle and he had to use the chimney and vent stack to rest his paint bucket on while getting up and down from the roof.  He is happy to report that the roof is still gray; no paint was spilled. 

And finally, a picture of our new addition: A Honey Crisp apple tree.  Incidently, Honey Crisp apple trees also fit into our car, though I don't think it was too happy.  I drove fast.

School's out for the summer....

Okay, really I have three more days, but I can dream, right?  We took a short break in house project spending to blow some money on a new computer, as the one we had (with the Obama sticker) refused to charge properly anymore.  Here they sit while we are busy working on the house on Saturday, happily transferring data.  I have to say one thing about Apple, and then I will start writing about the house, I promise.  The process of switching to a new computer was effortless.  They hung out in the living room all day, and at the end, it was like using a newer, shinier, hipper version of my old computer.  Everything was in its place.

Okay, we now return to the house blog.

The siding project has been going on steadily.  We decided, even though we have all those fancy tools, that hand scraping the clapboards is the way to go.  I spray it down with the hose, then scrape, in an attempt to keep the lead dust at bay.  

Why, you ask did we decide to scrape by hand? The paint failure on the clapboard was significant, meaning on most parts with a little muscle, the paint kind of flies off (goggles are a must).  The Paint Shaver, though integral to the trim, seemed like overkill for the siding itself.  About 2/3 of the house is scraped, and Kevin is much further along on the beadboard soffits. This photo was taken before we began work on Saturday.  I would go out and take one now, but it is dark and it would be hard to see.  Picture most of the gray paint and most of the white paint gone and you'll get the idea.  We plan on this being our last paint scraping weekend.  Funny enough, we've had people lining up to help paint, but no one wanted to help scrape.  I feel like the Little Red Hen. 

Last, I give you a helpful tip we've discovered: 

This is our tool basket.  Everything for the project (that doesn't have its own case) goes into the basket.  I have yet to go hunting for a tool during the project, and carting things in and out is a breeze.  

A Quick Update

We spent the weekend stripping paint off the trim on the house. We are actually pretty close to a point where we will be able to start fixing stuff and priming. Maybe another weekend worth of work paint removal. I would post pictures but the battery on the camera is dead and I am too tired to charge it and take pictures. Sad.

Our neighbors are having very different reactions to this project. The ones closest to the side we are doing are thrilled, which is good because the paint shaver is not a quiet tool. They really like the look of the house and are excited about seeing it brought back to it's glorious little bungalow state.

Our neighbor on the other side laughed at us when we told her what we are doing. Not a mean laugh, more of a laugh of disbelief. Both of our current project and our project output in general. She said we are making her feel lazy. I think we are getting a reputation....

Hello Bungalow!

So we got carried away yesterday.... and turned our house into a bungalow. Just to give you an idea (lucky we did the fence project or we would have no before pictures of this side of the house) this is what we began with:I know it's not the best picture, but you get the idea. We lucked out (so far). There is not one clapboard that needs to be replaced. There are maybe ten shingles that need to be replaced due to splitting from nails. We LOVE it. I don't think I can even express how much I love the siding. The shingles have a docked corner where they meet the sofit. If you zoom in on this picture, you can see it.


This is not to say everything is perfect. We need to redo the corner trim. The skirt is missing some trim. Poor girl.
Also, the beadboard is giving us trouble. There are roofing nails sticking into it, so the heat gun, scrapers, and the new paint shaver are pretty useless. It is protected, so a lot of the paint is in good condition and won't come off. We are considering Peel Away. Anyone used this? Is it worth it? Any other ideas? Other than the beadboard, the rest of the project seems doable.

The old cement asbestos shingles are double bagged sitting in our garage. We wore respirators the whole time, and maybe cracked 10% of them, so safety-wise, I think we're doing pretty well.


And I LOVE it.

Burning down the house....

Okay, so it just smoked a little. That's right, Kevin started the house on fire. Seriously, with the nice work on the fence and our finished bedroom, I was beginning to think we needed to change the name of the blog to reflect our mad skills. But I was brought back down to Earth today.

We were maybe ten minutes into the project when Kevin, who was on the ladder tackling the beadboard with the heat gun calmly asked, "Sarah, would you get a spray bottle?" I was busy into my own work, and told him just a second, until he asked again, this time with a little more urgency. That's when I looked up.

A comic (if you weren't us) routine followed, including a mad dash for the hose, running over to the burning corner, realizing the water wasn't on, and finally spraying from all angles and getting everything wet in the process. In case you are wondering, everything is okay (I can't even see where it's burned), and we live two blocks from the fire department, so even if we tried we would have a hard time doing too much damage. Needless to say, Kevin has been working with the heat gun on a much lower setting.
This is a shot of Kevin's progress for the day. The very corner, in the upper left of the picture is the infamous burned area. See? You can't even tell. The black area closer to the house in the photo is not from us. Wood rot??
Here's my progress form the day. The window is pretty close to being done, and will probably be done tomorrow, after I make a run to my sister's new house (they bought a Victorian) to give her rhubarb and onions. Finally, here is a close-up of the clapboard we stripped. It looks like it's in great shape, no?

Planning for a Job

Before the first hole is drilled, paint is scraped or post is set, a lot of behind the scenes action goes on over here at the bungled house. A lot of fast-paced, exciting action. Like this:Okay, so that picture was taken three years ago (about a week after we got Arlo). However, the job he is modeling, that of researcher, is of utmost importance.

For instance: the paint job on the exterior has not yet officially begun, but research has been conducted for months. Kevin and I spend a lot of time on this step. We look at tools, how-to guides, and products. I would say, in the last month or so, I have read no less than six "how to paint your house" articles. Everyone has an opinion about techniques, paint and primer. When their is disagreement, we try to find some actual research to back up claims. See, mom and dad, those liberal arts college degrees are paying off in ways you never thought possible.

So, I now present to you our research findings in,

How to Paint your House Bungled-Style*

*Subject to change once we get into this project and realize all our research was for naught.

1. We are going down to bare wood. First, neither of us like the look of a house where just the loose paint has been taken off. Second, we have massive, massive paint failure on the entire house.
See that? Yuck. We have the alligatoring too. And the blistering.

2. Okay, so that first one wasn't really a step in the painting process, more of a decision we have made. That decision, however, leads us to method: how we are going to scrape the house. The methods most people use are: dry scraping, dry sanding, the Paint Shaver (or similar product) heat (in the form of blowtorch, heat gun or Silent Paint Remover), chemical strippers or pressure washers. We are still debating this one. We bought a Silent Paint Remover, and while I think it will do wonders on the interior trim, I have my doubts about the exterior. The Paint Shaver is really appealing, but I have heard stories of gouges and it is expensive (though we could probably resell it for close to its original value). I'll keep you posted. If anyone has any questions about why we are not considering any of the other options, leave a comment and I will let you know more.

3. Wash the house. Some say to use TSP (tri-sodium phosphate), others say bleach, and others say mild detergent. I am leaning toward a lean mixture of bleach and detergent. The TSP can be harmful to landscaping, and though I know the bleach water isn't great either, it will do the job of fighting mildew well even when diluted significantly. We are planning to borrow my parent's pressure washer to do this, and use it on a very gentle setting.

4. Repair any damage to the wood. This is a good time to announce that we are in fact ripping out the asbestos siding. We are going to be gentle and use all the proper precautions. However, this means that we will have nail holes. A lot of nail holes. There may also be some split wood if a nail was driven too close to an edge. We are crossing our fingers on this one. We also have to repair any rotted wood, which seems to be focused so far on the front side of the house. I will let you know which products we use for this later. Any suggestions?

5. Sand. We are using 80 grit to give the paint something to grip onto. We will be using my Makita random orbital, though rumor has it Kevin broke it.

6. Prime. Here is a HUGE point of contention among pros. Oil or Latex Primer? I wish I could link to the article in Fine Homebuilding that goes into great deal about primer, but we have a subsrcription, so it's not free. Anyway, the main point is, a good 100% acrilyc primer will flex with the wood and last longer. There is a chance of water-borne stains showing through, but they are easy to find and those can be sealed with oil based primer without compromising the felxibility of the latex. If you are a research nerd like us, it's worth it to have a subscription to the online archives of FH. Another interesting fact from the article is that you should go with the "sister" primer of the paint you choose. So, Behr paint = Behr primer, Valspar paint = Valspar primer, etc.

We are still not sure how we are appliying the primer/paint. If we rent a sprayer, we'll have it for months, and that can't be cheap. So that is up for debate.

7. Paint. Honestly, right now I am leaning toward Duramax by Valspar. If you had asked me yesterday, I would have said Duration by Sherwinn Williams, but (notice a theme) according to my research, Duramax is about the same quality-wise if not a little better, and much cheaper. Again, all this could change. An added benefit of not using Sherwinn Williams is that there was an incident involving Kevin's dad, Sherwinn Williams and the Twins in the World Series that is still very raw, in that we were told never to use Sherwinn Williams paint.

So, there you have it. I am sure this will all change, and I think I forgot the step about caulking, so I will be adding on to this as we go. I just needed to wrap my head around the scale of this project. Which leads me to the next post: our plan.

A new development

So, the beadboard was giving us a lot of trouble, and after giving up and taking a nap, we decided to go to Home Despot to get a ladder. Why do you need a ladder to install beadboard you ask?

You don't. However, you do need a ladder to investigate the top half of your house to see if you have clapboard or shingles. Like a lot of bungalows, we have a horizontal trim board on the ridge-line of our house, which separates the siding from the...


shingles! And they are stained! The color is dark green and in good condition (at least the little peak we took). This is very exciting to us, as we both love the look of siding on the bottom half and shingles on the top. The fact that they have never been painted is also very exiting. Shingles take a lot of work to keep up if painted.

Anyway, keep the comments coming. If you have done a project like this, or even any project with your siding (painting, removing, repairing, etc) please share your experiences. If you really think this is a bad idea, let us know that too. Also, if you have cedar shingles, is there anything we should know? Thanks!

Yet another ridiculous project we are contemplating

This is the siding currently on our house (actually that's the garage, but you get the idea). It is known as cement-asbestos siding, and was used extensively in the 40s to 70s. It is kind of like an old version of Hardyplank, fake wood grain and all. It isn't bad, but it's not in character with the period of the house and, well, a little too frilly for my taste. As part of Kevin's birthday present, he was allowed to peak under the siding to see if the original clapboard was there and what the condition was like, as the current siding is more of an annoyance to him that it is to me.
It was there, and in pretty good condition. The paint was practically falling off. There were a lot of nail holes, but the wood looked good.

We HAVE to paint the trim this year, as it should have been done about five years ago. Theoretically, it would be a good time to do the siding removal. I say theoretically, because, a project like this comes with some risks. Following is a list of pros and cons to this project. I have included a poll on the side bar, and I encourage all to vote. Also, if you have experience with a project like this, or a strong opinion, please leave a comment.


PROS:

1. The clapboard would be so pretty. See, here's Tom Silva from This Old House installing some:

2. I could paint the house the colors I want.
3. It would not be blah and white.
4. There is very little risk in handling asbestos siding as it is only about 5% asbestos, and that is embedded in concrete.
5. My parents own a truck and are gone frequently in the summer....what do you say, Dad?
6. The house would be back to its bungle-splendor on the outside.
7. We could buy this nifty tool:




8. We have nothing better to do.
9. It would not be blah and white and frilly.


CONS:

1. The condition of the original siding is really unknown, but the stuff we found underneath seems like it's in good shape. (People generally installed it for the same reasons they install vinyl siding today: a salesman came to the door and told them it was maintenance-free; not because the siding was falling off the house)
2. It could get expensive if the condition of the siding is in bad shape.
3. The top of the house might be clad in cedar shingles, but for complicated reasons involving a scary wooden ladder that came with the house, we haven't checked yet. That could also get expensive.
4. Asbestos will be annoying to deal with: we would have to wear respirators and be very gentle with it, as it is only dangerous when broken.
5. It could be a lot of work (though see PRO reason #8)