Painting Progress

This has been the summer of painting the house.  At first it seemed easy.  pressure wash it, spray it, done.  See look - here is me thinking there is fun to be had in this project. 

We were very wrong.  What we thought was "house painting" became an "exterior restoration".  We quickly realized that our home had two coats of paints, none newer than 1975, and no primer anywhere.

First Josh pressure washed it.  The paint flew off the house, not everywhere, but enough to terrify us.  Wasn't paint supposed to stay on the siding?  We spent a full afternoon cleaning up the unexpected paint chips from the flower beds.  Ok - this means we have to scrape it.

We started scraping and realized that the pressure washer didn't even come close to removing everything.  Entire pieces of siding were stripped down to bare wood.  But not all of the paint would come off, leaving very clear defining lines between bare wood and painted sections.  We were lamenting this fact to a few friends when someone we hadn't met piped up and told us we should sand the house too.  It would make it less obvious where we had been unable to remove the old paint.  Damn - this means we have to sand it.

So we scraped, and sanded the entire house.  Everything that could be reached from the ground, I did.  Everything that could be reached from the scaffold, including every single tail, Josh did.

After it was scraped and sanded we decided we should spot prime it.  I decided to tackle that project while Josh redid the trim. 

Can you see the primer on Leonard's head?   A little later he managed to give himself a skunk stripe.  Its extra funny because I threatened to do it earlier in the day!  We had to take him to the groomer to get that off.

So, while I put primer on every spot of bare wood, Josh restored the trim around the windows and doors.

We also decided to paint the front trim white, before we painted the rest of the house.  This was a wonderful idea!  Of course, hindsight being 20/20, why did we only think to do this for the front?  As with most things we do, Leonard helped.

Then, finally, after longer than I really want to admit, it was time to paint.  We were discussing this with my Papa when he told us that back brushing makes it look so much better.  I was devastated, no more steps!  No more tools I want it to be done!!  But, Papa had the tools, and he had just painted his house and it looked so good...shoot...now I have to follow Josh and back brush.

 

Our plan was to prime the entire house on Saturday, and spray the color on Sunday.  We woke up on Saturday morning and it was raining.  OMG.  Can we catch a break?  It was a light rain so we decided to prep anyway and hope it went away.

Taping everything off...

 

Putting plastic down...

The primer layer!  Maybe we could just leave it white?

Josh after the primer layer.  Hooray for masks!

 

 

The sprayer setup.  We have a very kind coworker of Josh's to thank for the loan of the sprayer.  THANK YOU!

The man in action.

Go-go gadget back brush!

Taking off the tape!

Josh after the color layer.

Yay!

The weather cleared up, and we were able to prime and spray our entire house!  It looks fantastic!  We are so happy to be done, and we are very proud of ourselves for accomplishing this Herculean task.  Now, that said, we still have to paint the door and do a 2nd coat on the back trim.  So, I will save the final reveal until then...

The Dirty Dash

Well its official. We love playing in the mud! Josh and I did The Dirty Dash with a few friends and had a blast.

It is a three-ish mile run through dirt and mud.  By the end of it we were completely filthy and totally happy.

 There was a gigantic slip and slide.  If only I could figure out a way to get this thing to Iowa and share it with the nephews...

It was super cold, but very refreshing and the cleanest we had been since starting the race!

We climbed over a great big cargo net.  Had to be careful not grab the top bar, because it was a little slippery!

 

We slogged through a few mud pits.

 

This was the last mud pit and after I tried (and failed) to knock Josh down into it, he decided to take me down.

Here is all five of us at the end of the race.  Not sure if you can tell, but we all wore neon!

After we dirty dashed our way through the whole thing we were a little bit tired, really muddy, and completely hooked!

We are definitely on the look at for more mud runs to add to our schedule!  Anyone know about any other mud runs, or maybe you are interested in joining us for the next one?

Update and Entertainment!

Hello All! It has been awhile since our last post and I wanted to make sure you know that we did not fall off the face of the earth. We are diligently working on getting the house painted. We are scraping, sanding and painting and making really good progress. I know it will look fabulous when we are done!

In the meantime I wanted to share some things that have been keeping me entertained over the last few weeks.

Everyone knows that I love a good drag show. Not the kind that Josh and Mark went to recently:

But a glittery, size 13 high heels, fabulous show! Which is why I was extra excited to learn about my new song (Thank Chris!), and its even better because I'm in it!
Awesome!

And while I am showing you a music video. Here is another one, this is supposedly a parody of life in the rich area of South Korea called Gangnam, enjoy!

Just try to to pretend you don't want to break out into that dance!

Josh took Leonard to Urban Hound, a few days back and he had a blast, as per usual.  Although it takes a bit to get back to normal...at least we know he is comfortable at home.

Wish us luck on a speedy finish to the painting process!