In May of 2008 I started the long process of painting the house. I decided to tackle the front first, because it is of course the most interesting side of the house, but also the porch was new construction and really needed to get some paint on it.

Lori and I chose a color scheme that included the four colors on the barn, with some more added to the mix. In the end I applied 9 colors plus some gold leaf on the gables.

Because of the amount of prep and restoration needed to the gables and bays, plus the short painting season and being out of town so much for Lori’s cochlear implant surgery, it took me until today to finally finish the work on the front.

It feels really good to get that accomplished, but the scaffolding is already set up on the south side to start the work there. My plan was to finish the front and then enjoy the rest of the summer, but it’s starting to look like I might not get much painting done next year so I figure I better make use of some of the late summer and early fall where we typically get some of our best painting weather.

At least now when I get depressed with our yard, I can go sit in front of the house and pretend it all looks that nice.

But since we’ve been out of town so much lately there’s lots of catching up to do, and I feel real guilty when I don’t make use of the rare good painting days that we get in Ferndale.

So I attacked the chore list with gusto.

Saturday it was mostly just the stuff that has to be done, like mowing the lawn. Sunday though was a little more interesting as I juggled several projects at once. 

Fence Slats

For several months now I’ve been working on making the slats for the arbor in front. I bought the wood for this project during our Thanksgiving trip to Melody’s so you can see it’s taking awhile. 75 slats had to be cut with the tail design on both ends, sanded, primed and painted with two coats of latex. I’ve felt like I’ve been working on an assembly line the last few months. This is what happens when you pick a house so you can’t hear your neighbors.  I am so looking forward to making the 350 or so pickets.

In between coats drying I also put a couple of more colors up on the gable. Now it just needs the blue half balls attached and the gold leaf center. The balls are in the garage getting coated in epoxy before they get painted. The gold leaf will wait for a day without too much wind.

Front Gate

I also finally got our front gate hung. It was made with leftover parts from our front porch restoration. I would like to thank Steve Courtemanche for building it. I designed it, and bought the most expensive piece of wood I’ve ever bought for the frame, an $80 piece of old growth redwood. But I just couldn’t seem to get around to actually assembling it with the amount of other projects I have going on. So thanks Steve!

After I finished with the gate hanging, I noticed that our boxwood hedges were long overdue for a haircut. They were all halfway into that 70s afro look. So I decided to tackle one more project. When I got the wheelbarrow out to pick up the clippings, I picked a few nearby weeds. I’m not sure why, but picking weeds is like eating potato chips. You can’t just pick one. So I kept at it until three wheelbarrow loads later my back was sending me urgent warning signals that unless I wanted to spend the next few days lying on the floor, I should stop. Right now!

At 7:30pm I finally gave up and went inside to have dinner. After dinner I called mom since it was Mother’s Day after all. I missed that she was too far away to visit. She’s been very good to Lori and I this year, and it would have been nice to thank her in person. Plus, even though she always has a Sonny Do list for me when we visit, it’s never as long as my own list.