House painting

[artme]

Well, after the obvious problems with my eyesight - Macular degeneration and dropping another line on the sight chart - mI decided
it was time to give in and have a painter finish the outside of the house. I was simply not brave, or stupid enough, to risk climbing
the ladders and walking on planks.

Big discovery was - painting is easy when done by others!!

[elanjacobs]

Painting is the easy bit, it's all the prep work before that really sucks

[artme]

Painting is the easy bit, it's all the prep work before that really sucks

I had already done most of that!!

[rrich]

Way back, when the kid (now 47) wanted cable TV the deal was "Help me paint the house". The house is stucco.

I tried a small section of the garage (one wall) using a roller intended for stucco. That was work! I went and bought an airless sprayer. The next day was a Friday and the start of a 3 day weekend (Labour Day). I ditched most of the afternoon of work, came home and started spraying. Before dark I had sprayed the eves except for the peak of the roof.

Saturday with my son's help we completed the remaining eves and sprayed the entire stucco of the house.

A couple of tips about the spray system. Airless is really the cat's meow for spraying latex paint. The sprayer (Wagner) cost much less than $100US and that included a second piston and feed tubes to draw the paint directly from the can. A friend later borrowed the sprayer and the piston was replaced after he did his house.

Stucco requires a different type of paint than the eves. GET THE SAME COLOR in both paints.
Spray the eves first. If you get stucco paint overspray on the eves you cant see it.

That paint job lasted a good 15 years. Then we did the stupidity thing and had a "Texture Coat" (Tex-cote) applied which didn't last 5 years. Then I finally got smart about house painting. I had the house sand blasted and re-stuccoed. This time I had the color coat put into the stucco. The stucco with the color coat has been up there for a good 10 years and should last another 20. I'll be gone by then.

As for the eves, they were wrapped with white aluminum and vented with termite proof vents.

Now with synthetic turf and hardscape, I have two days of yard work a year. I spray the edges of the synthetic turf with Round-Up to kill the weeds. Usually at the end of spring, I'll run the shop vac over the turf to pick up all the spring droppings from the neighborhood trees.

Even at my age, everything except for the painting is doable. The best thing that I ever did was to have the color coat of stucco put on the house.

[artme]

Hi Rich. I have a spay out fit that has never been used.I am going to sell it.

My reall problem was/is the ladder and plank bit. Not only is my eyesight out of wack
but I have also suffered a worsening back problem. These two combine to give me a
really bad balance problem at height.

Everything else I do myself, even if it takes extra time, and I have plenty of that!!

I am presently building another bench storage cupboard and i have some heavy
duty work to do in the garden. That will be tackled in small doses.

SWMBO and I are intent on having a big clean out. We are both hoarders and so have
collected lots of stuphph that we might need some day!! Well it is well past some day!!