Wednesday, August 18, 2010

My House

There’s been so much going on lately that I haven’t been able to keep up on my blog here. Mostly because it’s be an emotional roller coaster lately, and I don’t want to bore you all with my personal disasters – but there are few things that I can write about without dragging you on the ride with me.

Most importantly, I’ve been working on my house. One of the perks of working for a construction company is that they have tools – and I can borrow them! So, I got their pressure washer and Rob and I set to work on the exterior of my house. We – or rather I should say He, since I mostly just stood there and watched – spent a good 2 or 3 hours getting rid of at least a decade’s worth of grit, grime, and volcanic ash off my house. While he was at it he stripped the stain off the garage door for me, with the intent of fixing the water damage to the lower left-hand corner.

Once he finished the pressure washing, he showed me how to run his sander to smooth out the garage door and prepare it for the new stain. I’ve been working on that about an hour each day after work (weather permitting, of course - rather hard to sand in the pouring rain). At the moment I have about one day’s work left to do before I call Rob back to help me with the next step. Let me assure you, sanding a garage door is not the easiest thing to do, even when most of the old stain has been already stripped off. For one thing, half of the door is way up high to where I have to stand on my tippy toes just to reach it. It’s been fun, though. And I have lots of eight-legged help, too.

The next step is to use the air compressor and blow all the dust off. I’ve already brushed it off as much as I can, but I’m sure the air compressor will do a much better job. We don’t want any dust in the stain, you know! Although Rob keeps reminding me “It’s just a garage door. It’s not a masterpiece, and it doesn’t have to be perfect.”

Once the garage door is finished, we’ll move on to the entry door. I’m going to thoroughly clean it with a Scotch Brite pad and some soap & water, and then we’ll paint it BRIGHT RED! I’m pretty excited about that, actually – although I can’t for the life of me figure out exactly why I want a bright red door. Once the paint is dry, Rob will then install a peep-hole for me. I have needed one of those since I bought the place 12 years ago.

Another job we have in mind is to somehow get rid of all the moss growing on my roof. Rob read on This Old House that you should get up there and spray it all down with a mixture of bleach & water to kill it, and then it can just be swept off with a broom. Of course, the trick is that you have to wait for it to dry out before you spray it with the bleach & water mixture so that it soaks it up. Those of you who live here will know that we are working on – what, 29 consecutive days of rain now? Whatever the number, its set a new record – and the entire world is sopping wet with no chance of drying out anytime soon! But as soon as it does, you’ll find me out on my roof with my spray bottle in hand!

Just pray I don’t slip and fall… that would not be good.

1 comment:

  1. I think we are up to 33 days in a row with rain. Maybe you want a red door like they have at Talbot's, but I don't think that you shop there very often. D, R and E

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