Painting the Front

After painting the columns and adding the lattice there was quite a break in there when I was working on the inside.  I finally started the outside in late April 2012.

Luckily one of my friends had a power washer she let me borrow.  Let me tell you if you think you can use a power washer without getting soaked you are sadly mistaken, my friend! 

This was actually a picture taken later on after scraping but you get the idea.  

First I power washed the front and the right side of the house.  There is an art to power washing I have to warn you.  If you're not careful you can damage your siding.  But it did get all the big paint chips off.  They were flying everywhere. In turn I had paint chips all over my clothes and body.  EVERYWHERE.  

One suggestion I had read was to use flower bed lining to catch the paint chips.  Well, that was a major fail.  The wind blew it everywhere and half the time I was trying to find bricks to hold it down with.  It was a no go and a waste of time.  Maybe if it hadn't been so windy and if it was a completely flat surface it would have helped.

After power washing

After power washing

After that not so fun chore came scraping and sanding.  I wanted to do this right because I did not want my paint peeling and in a year go through this process again.  I read several things online about scraping, feathering, sanding and disagreement over brushing it on and spraying.  Ultimately I went with brushing.  During this process I actually got a lot of comments almost insults because I decided to use a brush on MY siding.  Painting 100 year old siding versus brand new siding is not even close to being similar.  There are so many grooves and crevices. The other suggestion I saw people doing was spraying then going over it with a brush on old siding.  I didn't see the point in having to tape everything off and then do that. With a brush I was able to get into every nook and cranny  and  a year and half later I don't regret it one bit and I don't have any peeling paint.  

 I also had my strategy for how I was going to go about tackling this.  I decided to do one side at a time.  I started with the front.  I scraped, sanded, primed then painted.  I knew I  needed instant gratification to keep myself going.  It was nice seeing a side completed and how many compliments I got.  I also got some rude comments.  I guess that's the problem with living on a corner.  Ha

When we first looked at the house I had this color scheme of gray, navy and red in mind.  Then I found out the buyers were leaving two 5 gallon buckets of Beher Premium Exterior paint in yellow.  It was not my first choice but I went with it because that was several hundred dollars worth of free paint.  I am so glad I did!!  I absolutely love it now.  Here are some of the comments I got:

"Are you going back to classic white?" Me: "No yellow." Them: "Ohhhhh, yellow...."

"When you first started putting the yellow on I thought Oh God no.  But it's grown on me."

But one of the best comments I got from one of my neighbors " I lived here 30 years and have seen several men painting this house and no man has done a more thorough or better job"

Here's a list of tools in my arsenal:

Scraper One:  This was great for getting out old caulk and bigger pieces of flaking paint

Shur-Line 10 in 1

Scraper Two:  The best scraper EVER! Blue Hawk 2.6 in steel scraper.  I bought two of these.  You can also buy replacement blades.  These two held up the entire time and I still have them.

 I also did research on the best primer knowing that was just as important if not more so than paint.  Everywhere I looked this was recommended over and over.  

Bulls Eye 1 2 3 by Zinsser.  I actually used Killz at one point because I was out of this and had some Killz from a different project.  It did not do near the job as the Bulls Eye did when it came to stain blocking.

And now we come to my frenemy.  My sander made by Skil.  I went through 4 of these I believe.  Everything I read said go with an orbital sander and it was by far the best choice.  I had a quarter sheet sander but it just wasn't up to this job.  Plus the sandpaper for this was basically velcro and made for an easy replacement when I needed a new one.  I started out with the 40 grit.  I honestly didn't go through all the different grits to get to the smoothest finish.  But so far so good.

After all of that I had to caulk under each board.  I used this.  I know there's more expensive brands out there but I went with the Dap Alex Plus.  It's 2.28 at Lowe's and 2 dollars Wal-Mart.  Since I used probably a total of 60 tubes I went with the cheaper one.  It's held up.

The yellow going on the first side on the front right.

Some days I still can't believe I did this.

For more on how I painted the exterior please, visit these links!
The First Step
The Front Peak
The Front part 2
June
The West Side
The Front Door