Still Painting

I started painting my house in June starting at the furthest place from the street in the front where the least amount of people could see what I was doing. My thought then was to start painting the house and get better as time went on. I knew I didn't have the patience that a good painter has. But having built many houses in my life I knew I could paint and do whatever needed to be done.

note: I have written several articles about this already if you are interested since June 2012. Likely if you key in the words "Paint" or "painting" at the top of my site to the left where the search window is you can find them if you wish. end note.

So, now my daughter's boyfriend who actually does have the patience to do the front of our house right has come and is doing a really great job. And I have finished most of the house that is not visible from the street. (Except for some of the eves and a couple of sections of fence visible from the street. But since all the fences visible from the street I intend to tear down and rebuild within a couple of years I'm not as concerned about them so likely I will only hit them with a fast quick single coat. But everything else will need 2 coats to last a long time and not peel.

One of the secrets to making your paint last 5 to 10 years or more while still protecting whatever siding you have is to make sure you sand and use wood putty wherever necessary and to caulk (make sure your caulk that you buy can be painted over). I bought silicon caulking and you can't paint over this. I messed up by caulking several windows (likely 3 or 4) that at some time I will have to either scrape or sand off the silicon caulking because the paint won't stick within about an inch of those windows and doors where I caulked. Luckily, this is in the back of the house so it is less visible and something I can work on whenever it isn't raining in the fall or winter because fixing this will be labor intensive.

But now all the major flat surface areas of the house are painted (except the front) with a minimum of 1 coat and many places have 2 coats as well. But the eves are not all done yet. And the most difficult is "How do you paint right down to the ground without ruining your brushes or rollers?" My method which my daughter's boyfriend is also using is to dig about 2 inches of dirt away from the base of where you are painting where it meets the earth. Then paint and after it dries push the dirt back and then you haven't ruined your brushes or rollers and it looks painted right into the ground.

I find that eves are fairly problematic for me at age 64. First of all you have to always be looking up and sometimes this means a drip of paint is going to fall onto your face or in your eyes if you aren't wearing glasses of some kind. I always make it a point to be wearing either reading glasses or sun glasses when painting just to make sure I don't get paint in my eyes but you could also wear plastic goggles as long as they don't fog up on you. The second problem at my age is looking up all the time might give you a crick in your neck. So, I make it a point to not paint up above me in the eves for very long. Usually I won't let myself paint eves for more than an hour or two so I don't get neck problems from bending my head back looking up all day.

I suppose one way to deal with this so you don't have to look up so much would be to paint with a brush and then stand up in the eves and paint only straight out in front of you and leave the parts directly above you to do when you are not on a ladder. This could save your neck as long as you remember you are on a ladder doing this while up there.

note: I had an idea last night that might work regarding making the mistake of using silicon caulking that cannot be painted over. I came upon the idea of recaulking with regular non-silicon caulking over the top of silicon caulking. Though it might make more of a wad of stuff around the window or door it would save me 20 to 30 hours of pulling off the silicon caulking or sanding it off with an electric sander and then using regular non-silicon caulk then. So, I think this might work so I could paint the sections around the windows and doors 3 windows and two double glass doors that I made this mistake on. After I do it over the next few days or so I then have to let it cure for at least 24 hours before I try painting over the top of it.