Finally Painted T&G

I've been unmotivated to finish painting the basement tongue & groove wall, but this weekend I finally managed it. Last week, I decided to set a date for renting a uhaul so we could start moving racks and stuff back into the basement, and that finally provided the kick I needed.

Painting tongue and groove is a pain because it's difficult to get paint into all those grooves. LOL I'll probably still do a round of touch-up on the spots I missed, but it's a fairly even coat and I'm happy with it. 

We plan to install boards around the doorway and along the left and right edges but we're having a hard time finding boards out in the garage that are long enough and I don't want to buy more.

Basement Storage Painted

I guess I never posted photos of the mostly-finished basement storage area. Tim finished it last week. We had him use the Hubbard Squash-colored paint leftover from our project in the rest of the basement. It looks very yellow, but I'm sure it will look fine once we move back in. The lights were also leftover as I'd purchased them for another project and they hadn't gotten used.

Tim also laid down Rubber Stall Mats on the floor. They were much more affordable than products marketed as gym mats. I don't know exactly what brand he purchased, but they are similar to this product.

Jeff and I are now trying to decide if we'll do any more work in the space before we move back in. We have some tongue & groove boards leftover from the re-roofing project and we are considering installing them on that wall. I think it would help the space look more tidy once everything is back.

Jeff goes back to work tomorrow so it will probably be a while before we make any progress on this, though, I don't want to wait too long because I don't want to keep paying for storage.

Back Stair Decking

I don't remember what kind of wood CDR used for the back stairs—it was something tropical—but it looked really nice when they finished the project. I really regret we didn't finish it sooner. The nine years of weathering did not improve the appearance of wood and my several hours of sanding didn't do enough to remove the weathered wood.

Yesterday, I finally finished applying the Cabot Australian Timber Oil. I like the finish. Too bad I didn't do it sooner. =)

The boards next to the door are covered by a roof overhang so they look the best.

All the sawn balusters and railings are painted. I just need to finish prepping the newells (sanding and painting) and we can finish this project. 

It has gotten crazy hot in Portland—we have a forecast for something like 112℉ on Saturday—so it likely won't happen for a couple of weeks. I am really hoping this hot weather doesn't last the summer.

Railings Painted

For the past couple of weeks, I've been slowly plugging away at painting the railing for the back stairs. We didn't have enough sawhorses to paint everything at once so I've had to paint everything in two batches. It was a little painful to put paint on this beautiful clear cedar, but I've learned the hard way that it won't look so beautiful after a couple years of weathering.

First I did the batch of balusters inside the garage. I applied a coat of exterior primer on all four edges and then I did the same with a good quality exterior paint.

All finished and ready to be installed

Then, once we had the tablesaw moved into the garage, I set up the rails outside under the porte cochiere. They're getting their last edge painted later today, then Jeff will finally get his parking space back.

I had hoped to finish this stair railing project before summer arrived, but in March I decided I would rather finish my closet first because I was tired of the disarray in the bedrooms. Then, by the time that project was finished, it had started to rain. A lot. 

I figured it made the most sense to sand and finish the stair decking before we installed the rails which will require a week of clear weather when it's not-too-crazy hot. I'm crossing my fingers it will happen soon because I'm eager to get this wood out of the way in the garage. I have some other projects I would like to work on.

More Garden Benches

When we were cleaning up for our holiday BBQ, Jeff made a snarky comment about our junk pile of wood on the side of the house. He was right, it looked bad. This is roughly how it looked over there, though the wood was stacked next to the house, not spread out all over the driveway. (This is a photo from last fall, I didn't think to take a recent one.)

It finally prompted me to use up the last of the good pieces of scrap wood. Since we were planning to have a BBQ, I thought it would be helpful to have more seating, and because we still had some short pieces of pressure-treated 4x4, I was able to reuse my plans from last year.

Jeff and I quickly sifted through the wood and found we had enough pressure-treated 4x4 to make two more benches and once we confirmed we could find enough long pieces, we spent about an hour cutting everything out. (We used whatever kind of wood was handy, without regard to the species, though most of what we had lying around was cedar and fir scraps from our fence and shed projects.)

Then I spent the next few days staining everything.

These benches went together pretty quickly. We decided to use fewer slats on the top this time around because we are hoping it will be easier to clean the seeds/leaves out of the gaps.

The old white bench was also partially disassembled/cleaned and restained with the green stain. I'm not sure how durable the finish will be since we applied green opaque stain over the top of the white opaque stain, but we won't be putting it back under the maple tree so hopefully, it won't need as much scrubbing.

The rest of the weathered wood I didn't think I would ever use went off to the dumps before the BBQ. So, while the side of the house still looks a little junky, it is better. I do hope we'll get the last of this stuff cleaned up this summer.

Front Porch is Finished

Jeff from Hand Made Home finished our front porch. It looks amazing. It took three coats to get a nice even finish.

This was the before.

He obviously removed the old decking and replaced it with new wood.

The cedar for the back stair railing has been cut out. We got some help with the cutting from a guy named Tracy Livingston who used to be a contractor and is trying to get back into the game.

They were removed after this photo so I can paint them before the final install. Since we're out of the paint, I'm basically waiting for the next paint sale then I'll go buy a gallon.

I'm also waiting for several days of nice weather so I can sand down the deck and apply a new finish. Given the current forecast, it could be a couple of weeks.

Railing Progress

I've planed down the cedar and our installer did a temporary install on these boards so we could get the spacing right. There will be additional pieces of wood installed at the top and bottom that will hide the ends of the slats.  

Once the lower portions are cut out, we'll mark the diamonds, take out all the wood and cut them out. We'd also like to route the edges of the top rail. Then I'll start finishing it. I've learned from my past mistakes; we'll be finishing before the final install.

I was planning to paint them, but we seem to be out of that white color paint. But we do have lots of the opaque white stain we used on the pergola and fence, so I'm considering staining instead. I really don't understand the difference in durability.

Paint Rack Finished

 And we finished another project!

We couldn't make the top shelf tall enough for gallons because we needed to clear a pipe sticking out of the wall behind it. We ended up installing leveling feet on the bottom which helped with our very uneven floor in the basement.

Once we got it all in one place, it's obvious we have a lot of paint. Too much. We have six cans of Hubbard Squash! I've clearly been guilty of buying paint when I couldn't get to it when it was inaccessible out in the garage. This will be much better and we should be able to avoid buying any more paint in the future, unless we decide to change colors, of course.

I also got the first coat of deck stain on the little stools this afternoon. I chose this green because it matches the green patio table quite well.

I'm also going to restain the bench from the Hidden Garden with this stain. The white doesn't work well as it always looks filthy because the maple leaves and seeds leave a black discoloration when it rains.

Paint Can Rack

As part of our garage reorganization, we decided to move the leftover cans of paint into the basement. The basement has more consistent temperatures year-round and I think the paint will survive storage better. 

This is another salvaged wood project made from old timbers leftover from when we tore down the old garage. The plywood is pressure treated and is leftover from when we built the shed. I designed the rack last year, and we cut out the wood, but then it just sat. We're finally working on it.

When we returned to the project earlier this week, we realized not all of the 2x6s were cut accurately and the pieces were too short, so we evened them up and did a bit of a redesign. I haven't updated the design in SketchUp and I probably won't bother.

Back Patio Furniture

I gave up waiting for the outdoor dust cover and we went ahead and installed the seats on the patio furniture. I am really looking forward to eating many of our meals outside now.

I definitely need to make matching placemats. :)

Project Updates

I was really psyched when Jeff found a Crandall Clove Currant I wanted for the Hidden Garden at Portland Nursery this past weekend — on clearance!! It was marked down to $13 from $26, but when we paid for it, it was an additional 50% off. We only paid $6.50 for a 2-gallon pot! It was the last one, so its shape was sort of ugly, but I am hopeful that next year it will fill out and Jeff will be able to prune it into a better shape.

As we were leaving, I spied a clearance area. I didn't know they had a clearance area! I found a whole tray of unusual ferns for $3/ea in 4-inch pots. Yeah, we took those home too. And three bleeding hearts that were also marked down 50%.

Most of the ferns went in under the black walnut tree which has now been double dug. (The ugly blue tarp is covering the last of the black walnut mulch that the guys still need to finish spreading around the shed.)

The black walnut pruning really opened up the planter to more sun. I do hope it lasts for at least a few years.

Yes, that is sun you see so we did some painting on the shed. It's not done, but it's close. Yesterday, Jeff finished painting the brackets while I did the first coat on the door/window trim.

Today, while Jeff was doing a big cook day, I finished the second coat of green on the windows and a second coat on the white trim. Jeff still needs to finish painting the edge boards on the roof line.

We need one more day of dry, reasonably warm weather to finish. Tomorrow the forecast is rain, but hopefully, the weather forecast will be accurate and Wednesday and Thursday will be sunny. I'll be so relieved to finally finish this project.

Shed Painting Started

I was planning to wait and post photos when we finally finished this project, but with the way our weather has been behaving, I'm not sure we're going to get it finished before next spring. Though, now that I have the windows masked, I am hoping for at least one day of decent weather so I can get those painted too.

Right after I took this photo yesterday afternoon, before we could even finish cleaning up the painting tools, some random thundercloud came by and hailed/rained on it. I guess we can be thankful that we had finished by then.

This morning, I went out to survey the damage. It looks fine; the very last thing we painted would benefit from some touchup.

It Rained :(

Jeff and Aaron managed to fill all the nail holes and do more priming on Friday. I painted the first coat of paint on the door.

Since it started raining on Saturday, we didn't get to start putting the paint on. Instead, we did a bit of garage organizing.

I managed to clear off the big workbench and sanded off all the marks and sealed it with two coats of the Daly's Seafin' Ship'N Shore leftover from the planting table.

I've spent several hours now sifting misc. boxes into the large sterilite tubs and the piles of loose stuff are diminishing. Here is how the garage looks at the end of day today.

We obviously still have a lot of work ahead of us. LOL

Painting Weather

The weather has finally cooled off and we have several days of weather with low risk of rain in the forecast so today—finally—we got to work on priming the garden shed. Once Aaron arrived to help Jeff, I wandered off to my own painting project.

I think unless we get rain, we'll be able to finish painting this by the end of the weekend.

I nearly finished up painting the galvanized iron patio furniture. Jeff wanted more copper on it, so I painted all the cornucopias in the copper paint. I need to do a bit of touch up with green paint, but I'm quite happy with how it looks.

Good Progress Today

The guys had a good day today working on backyard projects. Jeff did a quick pressure wash of my planting table. Once it dries out, I'm going to use a sealer on the tabletop and shelf before it moves into the basement.

Then he pressure-washed the wall along the property line. We didn't realize quite how dirty it was until he started cleaning it.

Puttering Thru Summer

I had hoped to finish all my painting projects by the end of July, but the projects are going slower than I expected.

This week I've been painting the metal patio set. The primer is taking a lot longer to dry than the can says. Perhaps I'm putting on coats that are too thick, or it's too humid. It seems like I spend most of my time waiting for primer to dry. And I only have space to work on one piece at a time. I've finished the table and now I'm working on the chairs. I'd never done a project this large, so I didn't have a good idea about how much paint to buy. I've run through four cans and I need to get more. LOL

On a whim, I decided to paint the flowers with copper paint. I like it. It's fun.

Yesterday, I made another batch of canned peaches.

I've finished the front porch wicker and ended up buying cushions for them. I could have made them myself, but while I was shopping for fabric and foam, I realized it was cheaper to just buy these from Target. They work well enough for our needs and they'll likely last the two years we plan to use them.

The patio table has been finished, but we've decided to move the pieces to Prineville unassembled. It will fit in the back of the truck a lot more easily in pieces. We've gotten all the hardware/screws to assemble them again, and we'll bundle them all up so we can easily locate all the pieces to put it back together on the other end.

And we water plants daily. We have a lot of plants sitting around in pots and I'd like them to make it until September, when we plan to plant the hidden garden behind the garage.

Painting "Booth"

Jeff jury-rigged up a painting booth in the pergola and, despite the heat, I've been busy the last several days painting the wicker chairs. I've never painted wicker before so I didn't realize how much paint they require to do a good job. Jeff had to go buy more cans in the middle of the project. I think I used eight cans for the four green pieces.

I used the Rust-Oleum Painter's Touch Ultra Cover Gloss Hunter Green Spray Paint, which was on sale at our local Ace Hardware. The gloss is nice, but I don't know how long it will last, and it makes the wicker look vaguely plastic.

I also need to sing the praises for the Can Gun 1 which made this project SO MUCH easier.

First I painted the white chairs and they're listed for sale.

These look much better now.

Painted and drying

I need to figure out if I can recycle these

I still need to paint the metal table, but I need to make a trip out to Lowe's to get primer; I finally found a reasonably priced option that will prime galvanized metal.