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-