Vehicular Paperwork

We continue on NewOldHouse, of course, but there is little interesting to talk about. We have been preparing the interior for paint, and the exterior for the inevitable arrival of autumn rains. I'll describe some of these efforts, but today I renewed the license plates for Hapy, and I thought that might be more interesting. Yeah, like the difference between watching paint dry and watching grass grow....

Prepare for Paint

As with anything paint-related, it is all in the prep work. We started with laying paper on the refinished wood floors and then checking for nails, screws, picture mounts and holes in the walls. Before we got after repairing the holes, the walls and ceilings were washed and rinsed. Then, we solved the holes with spackle. Next, we masked the windows and caulked seams. After removing the light fixtures, I masked those, and the exposed electrical outlets and switches. This took all of 30 seconds to type, but it has taken many days. On the right, here, is the only picture I've taken inside in a while. This is not a terribly informative picture, but is what is.

Prepare for Rain

The seasonal rains are arguably late this year. I usually reference Columbus / Indigenous Peoples' Day as the normal start of rainy season in Northwestern Oregon. Today, it is still sunny and dry. This will not last and we have some things to solve quickly.

First, NewOldHouse has 4 foundation vents which are below grade (meaning the garden dirt is above the bottom of the vent). Recall we had the crawlspace cleared of debris and the vapor barrier replaced. These below-grade vents will allow water to drain into the crawlspace, upsetting that clean and dry space. To remedy, I started by digging out around the vents down a few inches below the concrete lip. I will add a sheet of clear Lexan to the outside to cover the bottom half of the vent opening and seal it with clear caulk. Unfortunately, some of the existing grates are not small enough to prevent mice from getting through... though they fortunately aren't. So, enter Orkin to chase the buggers and replace the grates. Fortunately, they solved all of the other possible access points when they diagnosed the problem; they just ran out of tight-mesh grate stuff. So, once Orkin solves for those grates, I will apply the Lexan to keep any water potential away.

Other than keeping rain out of the house, I needed to set up the carports so Zed stays dry. Recall, Zed still does not have glass installed, so weather can get right in. The car ports are easy to dis-assemble and reassemble, so moving them and getting them set up was not hard. I have discovered, though, that the plastic sheeting is not hardy enough to withstand year-over-year sun and rain battering. They are starting to split, so I will need to replace them more-than-likely before this winter reaches it's end. Still, for now, they are up and the one closest to the NewOldHouse is ready for Zed. Since Zed is not yet a driver, I may be towing him over with the lawn tractor Boo bought from the prior owner. I expect a full comedy of errors that will result in a future post. This picture on the right shows a few things. First, that post is from the carport and that boot is Boo crawling under the house through one of the foundation grates. This one is pretty much at ground level, so I may create a little berm at it's leading edge to keep water from trickling in. That grate is the only entry to the crawlspace.

Vehicle Registration

Now, for what I intended to write about: renewing the registration for Hapy. As has been well documented, I have a few cars. Only one of them is from before 1974 when motor vehicle emission testing became a thing. So, Hapy doesn't need a smog test, but like everyone else, we need to renew his plate stickers every other year. This year is that year. So, I went to OregonDMV.com to renew him and noted that my fee is based on his projected mpg, based on model year, etc. Apparently, the 1972 VW camperbus was expected to get 19mpg or lower. My fee was then driven off of that fact. truth-be-told, I was not getting 19mpg before I started the engine swap, so their assignment was fairly accurate. Curious to see if my fee would be measurably better if my mpg was better, I went looking for their schedule. It turned out that the better your mileage, the more you pay. I suppose this is to offset the loss in tax they get from you when you buy fuel. That just proves that the man will get you coming or going; either way they are gonna get theirs. I had thought about doing the paperwork to tell the state that Hapy was running 30+ mpg on diesel, but I have to pay a fee for that too. And then, I would be paying and extra $30 to register him every 2 years from then on. Clearly, there is a counter-incentive to be transparent.

Another thing worth noting is how low the fee is for car rental companies. They can register almost 2 cars to our one. That hardly seems fair. We individuals need transportation sometimes, for life conditions outside our control. Car rental companies are buying and renting out cars as a business, and the person renting the car is paying the fuel taxes when s/he fills up. I suppose the rental car companies get the sweetheart deal because they can influence our representation in Salem better than we individuals can. Anyway, enough soapbox, it just seems like we are underwriting the rental car companies in the form of a corporate handout. Must be nice.

I meant to publish this last week, and time got away from me. We had a bunch of adventures over this past weekend. I will write them up for sharing in the next few days. thanks, as always, for following along-

If It Doesn't Move, Paint it (Part 2)

Continuing the journey of getting our new space ready for moving in, we completed the painting of  exterior... so today's post covers that.

But First, Cars

Me, Joe and the truck

Boo and I took an evening off from the house repairs to help our friend Joe. Joe is partway through an engine replacement on a 90's Ford pickup truck, and since I can't really get into any of my projects out of fear of them becoming such a time-suck the house move/swap timing is jeopardized... I got my car-fun in helping out a friend. All we got done in a couple of hours was the install of the power-steering pump, the A/C pump and the serpentine belt, but those are 3 fewer things for Joe to do on his own, so it's a win. I expect we'll be over there again sometime soon to help through the next step, whatever that is.

Caulk

Like so many jobs, I started so optimistically. I thought I could get the caulking done, quick-mask and start shooting in one week. Well, that didn't quite work out. I was able to get the caulking done around work obligations during the week, but I did not anticipate the need to prime the bare wood spots. For caulking, I simply hit every seam between the windows and the siding. Many of these seams were in fair condition, and were still holding after the power-wash and scraping. Still, I ran a thin bead anyway. With a gloved hand, I then ran a finger on the bead of caulk to set it into the gap and flatten it tight against the joining surfaces. This assures a good seal.

Prime

you're not blurry. I was

Boo went to get us some paint and learned from the paint guy that no matter what it says on the 5-gallon tub or on the manufacturer's website, paint needs primer to work best. The stuff that says "self-priming" is really just a marketing shtick. I figured that the paint guy could have been trying to up-sell, but after the Zed painting experience, I was willing to accept paint needs primer. So, we grabbed a 5-gallon of Kilz interior/exterior primer and some brushes.

Ready to start, Boo wisely asked "should we wash the house again first?". When we bought this fixer, the house next door was ALSO sold as a fixer and they had been generating lots of dust clearing their lot. That dust was now a heavy coat on our house. So, with the pressure sprayer full of house-wash soap and a pressure-nozzle on the garden hose, I spent Saturday morning washing the house.

Fortunately, we have been enjoying some late-Summer-like warm dry sunny weather so while I was washing one side of the house, the side I just washed was quickly drying. Once I was done, I switched to brushing the Kilz.

I simply brushed primer everywhere I could see wood. Unfortunately, for some areas that was practically the entire thing. The window frames were especially in-need. I found that the areas which were facing direct sunlight, but had not completely peeled were very paint-thirsty, sucking up a brush-load of paint in just a few inches. We pressed on and by the middle of the following day (Sunday) we had it all primed.

Mask

masked, garage needs primer

While Boo finished the last of the priming, I shifted to masking. The plastic folded film makes masking fairly easy: pick an orientation that allows you to use the least amount of material... line it up so the amount rolled out is wider than you need and cut. Lay the top edge of the plastic against the shorter length of the area you are masking (like a window frame) and tape to the edge, leaving the tape edge far enough from the edge of what you are painting so you get paint everywhere you want it. Then, unfold the sheet. It will cling to the window, so it should not become unwieldy. Once the far edge has been reached either fold back under or cut off the excess. I will usually clean-tape the first edge and work my way down the sides with tape on my way to the final edge. Then, I tape that final edge.

It is a small house, so masking the windows only took me the better part of an afternoon. I completed the task by masking off the gas and electric meters, as well as the water taps. I did not intend to paint the front door trim with the sprayer, so I simply hug some plastic to avoid getting overspray near it. In the picture above, you can see the masked front exterior. Boo primed that garage door after I took the picture.

Shoot

A few weeks ago, Boo and I hit Harbor Freight with a 20% off coupon, so I got one of these for 20% off. Winning. I got a 20-inch tip extension and an extra, smaller tip (which I didn't use). Then, last weekend, Boo picked up some basic white interior/exterior eggshell latex paint. Once the house was ready, I left work early (3PM) Tuesday to get the paint sprayer assembled and primed with water, so I could get a handle on using it. Assembly, priming and getting a feel for it with water took 30 minutes. Once it was ready, I readied the workspace with a 5-gallon of exterior paint, a long extension cord and a drop-cloth. We have a limited number of outlets with the grounding plug, so the biggest challenge was routing electrical so I could keep shooting. The actual sprayer worked great. The coverage was consistent, and while I kept the pressure on it's lowest setting, I still had a paint fan wide enough to completely cover 2 boards of wide siding in a single pass. I did not suffer much over-spray either.

painted

The shoot started around 4PM and took about 90 minutes. To clean up, I put a couple of gallons of water in a spare 5-gallon bucket. I pulled the draw hose out of the paint, wiped the excess paint off and dropped it into the water. I sent the priming overflow into a waste bucket and primed the pump with water. Once the overflow was running cloudy water, I switched from the prime to the spray setting, running the sprayer tip into the waste bucket. I would check the water:paint by spraying onto the dead grass, looking for how white it was. Once it was cloudy water, I shut it down, took it apart and took the hoses and sprayer bits to a sink for more cleaning. I spent, probably, 45 minutes in-total getting the equipment clean and then left it all soaking in soapy water for a final rinse and re-assembly the next day.

The masking is still in place. We will be taking a more in-depth walk-about, looking for thin spots before pulling the masking down. We did walk the work after it was shot, while it was still drying, and it looked very promising. Since the last sections were still very wet, it was hard to determine the quality of the coverage. I hope we will determine the coverage good enough to warrant brushing any thin spots so we can pull the masking and start thinking about the interior paint.

That's it for today. Thanks, as always, for following along-

If It Doesn't Move, Paint It (Part 1)

Our youngest son, K2, started his service in the Navy recently, so I am borrowing from an old armed forces adage for today's title. Following seas, K2. On topic, Boo and I are continuing on our NewOldHouse journey, and today's post is about preparing for paint. I say preparing because we haven't gotten to the actual painting part yet. Maybe next week? Who knows, but I'll post part 2 when it happens.

Interior Cleaning

I have mentioned a few times just how grody the NewOldHouse is, or was. After the crawlspace was cleared of rubbish and new vapor barrier installed, things were decidedly better. Then, the floors were cleaned, sanded, stained and sealed. More better. Next for the interior (excepting the kitchen and bathroom), is painting the walls and ceiling. I used to paint houses for a living, so I know how to do this, but before we could paint, we wanted to clean and clear the space. This starts with protecting the floors with paper and plastic so the nice new floors are not damaged. Then, we removed all of the electric outlet and switch covers. Those steps are fast. Next, we started washing the walls and ceiling with TSP (or some similar cleanser). Since this house was so gross, we went with the more industrial TSP rather than something weaker. YMMV. Regardless of what you use, it takes a long time to mop walls and ceilings.

Exterior Scraping

After all that inside-focus, I felt the weather change looming. I have written about this feeling before, and how it effectively drove the effort to get Zed painted before mid-Summer. Well, here we are in autumn and we have a beater-house with peeling 30+ year old paint on it. I hit it hard with the power washer, and thought that would have loosened the paint. I did remove some, but there was more remaining than I expected. I focused on the front and sides for my first weekend of scraping, and after about 10 hours, I had those 3 sides mostly scraped. I did the rear over the course of a few week-day evenings that following week and finished everything the following weekend. I used 2 tools: first what I call a "5-way" that has a sharp-ish blade perpendicular to the handle that is bluff on one end and pointy on the other. I used this tool to pick at paint bubbles and splits to try to lift the paint. If I could, I would grab the edge with a gloved hand and pull the paint off. Regardless, once I got what I could in an area with the 5-way, I would use an old-skool scraper. A classic paint scraper has a handle that's about a foot long with a rectangle on the end in which sits a 2-sided scraping bar. That bar will grab paint edges, peeling or chipping it away -or- it will grind down a paint edge, if it is holding to the siding. The end result is the loose paint comes off and the transition from not-painted to painted is smoothed. Once paint is applied, these transitions are far less visible afterwards. This is strenuous work, however. After spending 2 weekends pushing scrapers, I load up on Monday with ibuprofen for recovery.

5-way on steroids

I found that some areas would have a great deal scraped off, like in the picture on the above right. Other areas, the paint adhered very well. A neighbor offered that the paint came off in areas where moisture could appear from behind, like an uninsulated garage wall (image above is a garage outer wall). I found, too, that the walls which were hit by significant direct sunlight peeled more. In the picture, the top 2 runs of siding were almost perfect; I could not remove paint without more severe steps. This part of the siding is sun-protected by the roofline. The siding further away in the picture is shaded by a large tree. I guess that's one more advantage to surrounding your house with trees: paint lasts longer.

Delaying Exterior Repairs

When you get close enough to your siding to scrape it, you really see every imperfection. Regardless, I knew I had another day of driving nails and shooting caulk before I can cover windows and doors with plastic for shooting paint. I also found some failing areas that will need more attention. I expect that I will get the siding good enough and paint-shot to protect the house this year and will repair wood areas next year, and hand-brush the repairs as I go. The alternative could push the whole painting effort into the rain, and that changes the paint material choices since you can't paint water-based paint in the rain and expect a decent result. The soffits have some rot and the roofers did not clean above the soffits before installing the new roof, so there is work there. I will not get to this due to time constraints. I also found at least one lower window sill with some rot damage (see image on the right). Again, I do not have the time to fully resolve, so I will protect the damage as best I can with a plan to perform more major repairs when the weather changes (or when I can afford to pay someone else to do it).

I was able to walk the outside with a box of nails and a framing hammer, however. I re-set every nail that I could see, to get the siding to sit as tight as it could with the existing fasteners. When I could still hear a hollow thump when I struck the siding with the handle of the hammer, I sent in another nail. I repeated this until the thumps were solid. I also replaced all of the missing corner pieces as I went. 

Next, I will caulk the windows and doors, and eventually get to hanging plastic and shooting paint. Fortunately, the weather forecast is holding for the next week. So, I figure I will spend a few after-work evenings caulking this week, and if all goes well, next weekend I will mask and paint.

Thanks, as always, for following along. I know this isn't car content. Once the house is done enough for move-in, I will be getting to car projects again. All good things in all good time-