Tuesday, October 14, 2025

Painting this old house

      I've lived in this house since 1990, 35 years now. As you might be aware the roof leaked and I had to replace it and the rain gutters. After they were done I decided that a fresh coat of paint was the next project.

    First I needed a colour. When we bought the place it was barn red and our previous place was also barn red. I wasn't enamored of it but raising the family came first. Then that fell apart and everyone moved out but me. It wasn't until somewhere around 2007 I painted it olive drab with a dark brown trim, well I never quite finished all the trim. So basically green and brown.



    This time I wanted to kinda take some colour from Nature and decided on this local plant called Coyote Mint, it has an interesting aroma when the leaves are crushed and can be brewed into a tea.


    I plucked a branch and went to the local paint place and had them match it. I wanted the blossom for the trim and the leaves for the walls. They mixed me up a couple of samples and I tried them out on a corner of the house.


    Most of my neighbors thought it would be nice! Next I had to look for a paint sprayer, Nobody in the neighborhood had an airless so I spent some time looking at rentals and searching craigslist for a deal. I finally decided to buy one. I got a Graco M5 and a 12' wand. Not money I wanted to spend, I felt it was the best way to go.  When it came in I built a stand for it because I wanted the hose to go to the bottom of a 5 gal bucket. 




Whilst looking I bought the trim paint and painted all the trim. It was at this time I realized that NOW would be the time to fix all those nagging things about the exterior which I disliked. Things like the peak of one end had no battens covering the gaps between the boards and those 2 gaping empty knotholes in the other end.



    My first attempt to fill the knotholes was with paintable silicon. You can see it in the above picture, the white stuff. It was too slow curing and too flexible so it was removed forcibly. In its place I let in pieces of extra batten I had. The seams were wood puttied and sanded. 



 After paint I can't hardly see them.


     There was  A LOT of trips up and down the ladder to measure and cut and install each batten. I also made one for next to the front door and kitchen window which were never there. I made another trip to the paint store for the 5 gallons of paint.

   Next was to tape off all the trim which was painted. Using blue tape and 8" paper roll it took a day to get this all done.







And then it rained, more of a drizzle, but too wet to paint. So I waited while the paint sat in my garage. For 2 days it drizzled and on day 3 I let it dry up.

Day 4 I hit the ground running! Set up extension cords, ladders, mixed the paint up, set up the sprayer with the extension wand and followed the instructions for priming.

Again with the ladder, up, down, move repeat. It took around 2 hours for the first coat and I did get a couple of runs, but........







    After a 20 minute break I put on the second coat, This time without the wand extension. I confess it was a mistake to use it. I thought I could get under the eaves easier, which it did, but there wasn't proper room for it elsewhere. Again about 2 hours. Later I pulled off all the paper and tape.

   The next day I started putting things back up like the house numbers and some trim pieces. I sanded off the overspray next to the house on the front porch with my palm sander. I re-hung my string lights only this time I recessed them behind the fascia.








     Next up was to finish sanding the porch and staining it. Again I started with my palm sander and after an hour I could see it was going to take days. So I borrowed my neighbors belt and oscillating sanders. The belt sander was doing good and then I broke 3 belts in 10 minutes and switched to the oscillating, I think it is an 8" disc. I has 2 settings mild and MONSTER! I started on mild it wasn't much faster than my palm sander. So I tried MONSTER! I could barely hang on to it with a virgin disc! I finally figured out how to work it and over the next 3 hours got my ass really tired and the deck sanded. I was sore for some time from this.




   Again rain was in the forecast so the next day I went to the hardware store and picked up a gallon of Penofin, transparent redwood stain. And not wanting to deal with overspray I brushed on 2 light coats with a wipe down in between.






After the front was done I turned my attention to the back porch. I had gotten overspray on the rafter for the roof. I wanted it to look pretty too. But first I wanted to seal the underside of the rear gutter to the porch's corrugated roof. It has been an annoying issue since I put on the roof as duff from the redwoods goes under the gutter and when I sweep or blow off the roof it falls down onto the porch and with all my crap it's hard to sweep it. The blower is especially dirty.




 I had a partly used can of expanda foam and I climbed on the roof to put it in. Damn thing would work! Nada came out...grrrrr! Back to the hardware store and get another can. Supposed to fill 3" gaps. Well, I did get a bead down the 25' the last of it barely expanded.



    Not nearly the seal I wanted, but I needed to get sanding.

Put on my safety gear


     I used my tired ol arms and my palm sander and a whole pack of 80 grit pads and 3 hours to get it done. I rehung my antlers and extension cords. Went in to take a well deserved break.


      Yet that gap kept bugging me. Sooooo back to the hardware store, pick up another can and try to fill the gap. I did fill most of the gap there is still about 5' I need to do, another can......



Then after a day of soaking in of the stain it rained, 1-9/16". And as a bonus the roof on the rear porch used to leak right in front of the slider where a tree branch hit and bent things, now it doesn't! Win!

    The front beaded up nicely and is not slippery when wet. Another Win!


    I am glad that job is done!

   

Wednesday, August 20, 2025

New gutters for my house

     The gutter guy showed up in the morning. Set up his trailer with an extruding machine inside. This was my first chance to see one. He puts on a roll of flat material and runs it through the machine where a series of dies roll it into shape. In my case one piece gutters 37' long.





The locals were not impressed!


     Like most jobs it didn't go smooth. The flat part of my roof has a vinyl cover, this fits over the edge of the old gutter next to the fascia and normally both are screwed to the fascia, Aahhhh not so in my case. The installer had glued the vinyl to the gutter. This created more work for the gutter guys and added maybe 45min to the job. The owner/installer got upset that he was losing $.

    So once that was worked out he wasn't in a good mood and they hung the rear and front gutters. This was problematic too as I had wanted the downspouts on the West side of the house so I could route the discharge into the close by ditch. Well turns out the rear had to be drained to the East due to not enough room to raise the end under the vinyl. A new hole had to be cut and the West end one plugged. In the front, my house is lower on the East end this frustrated the guy even more but they got it done, all draining Westerly. The boss packed his crap and he left, ostensibly to find his phone and work another job. I got no sympathy for him. It wasn't my idea to spend $13k on a roof and gutters. If it hadn't leaked I wouldn't have.

    The worker bee, John, stayed and did a fantastic job installing the downspouts and screens on the gutters. 




     Due to the large drop John had to put longer flashing between the shingles and the gutter to cover the gap of the exposed fascia.


    John installed the screens, they had to be bent in a brake that was on his tailgate. The lip was screwed to the inside gutter/fascia and the flat was screwed to the lip of the gutter. The screens are aluminum extrusions on both sides and stainless mesh in the middle.





And then they were on and John was finished!



   I'm not, today I patched the hole which was cut in my back porch roof. It wasn't hard cause it's only corrugated steel. I took up a piece I had and marked where to cut, cut it and using sheet metal screws put it into place. I didn't think to take a pic.

   Now I have to look into flex pipe to run the discharge from the downspouts. Dig trenches and bury it. And maybe a paint job......it never ends......

Friday Aug 22, 2025

      Gutter guy finally answered my email last night with printable invoice. This morning I emailed I was available and had the payment, 4 and a half hours later I got a text, was I home and available, to which I replied yep. He came up and picked up the payment!

    GLAD TO BE DONE WITH ALL OF IT!

Now I have to deal with State Farm, I think it's a no-brainer, go to the office with my  twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back explaining each one.

     Then see what they say.