Our Olde House: June 2023
After three weeks the painters finished painting Our Olde House. I was expecting people who saw the house after the painting was completed to say something like, “It looks nice” or even the ever-popular and confusing, “Did you paint the house?”, but no, the only comment I have received so far, and this includes the UPS driver, is “Are you moving?”. Miss Sherry and I are not moving or selling the house; we just had it painted.
I have been painting the house for the past five years, with some progress, but I did not get even halfway around the house. Irregardless (my favorite non-word) what I was doing was not anywhere near what these painters did. The entire house was power washed, then the entire house was hand sanded, then the bare wood was covered with a primer, then every seam where one board overlapped the next board was caulked, then an undercoat was applied, then all of the windows were caulked, then the windows were taped, and only then was the white semi-gloss painted onto the trim and the light grey-blue satin painted onto the house. I get woozy just thinking about that amount of work and level of detail and the fact that I could never have come close to the professional paint job that Our Olde House now enjoys.
For our part, Miss Sherry and I painted the front porch ceiling, porch floor, walls, railing, and trim around the door and windows; just the porch took us one week and all we did was wash it to remove the mildew and paint it. I am not sure why the porch seems so susceptible to mildew on the paint, but it is. I have found that high gloss paint is much better at avoiding mold, and it also cleans up easier; you do need to add some grit to the porch floor paint to keep it from being slippery when wet. I do not recommend waiting to paint everything at once, it would be better to split it up.
In case anyone was thinking that nothing broke this past month, that would be a No. One toilet flapper started leaking and the toilet was flushing itself every few hours. I kept the package from the current flapper so I would know which new flapper to buy, and I went for a quick trip to the hardware store to get a new one. I thought that the new one would seal completely since it was supposedly the same as the old one which used to work, but of course, that was not the case. After three failed quick trips to the hardware store, the fourth ‘universal’ one size fits all flapper that I purchased is not leaking, the other three got tossed into a drawer awaiting the next flapper leak.
The ladybugs finally stopped getting into the kitchen, which seemed to last much longer than before, and as expected the ants returned to the kitchen immediately after that. I set off another ant bomb under the house, but that seemed to stampede the little buggers into the kitchen even worse. I went back to setting out ant bait, and after a week they were gone.
And we did manage to get another rat under the house, which was apparently followed in by a small possum. I put the traps back under the house and the rat was removed after a few days. I caught the possum in the live trap, and removed him; I reset the live trap just in case there was another possum, and what do you know, I caught another possum the next day and removed him. Once again, I reset the live trap, and two days later I caught a third possum and removed him. No, this was not the same possum. I reset the live trap and it has been without an occupant for a few weeks now, and neither rat nor possum has shown up on the camera either.
For now, I need to concentrate my efforts on finishing the bathroom update. The wallpaper arrived and we picked a new color for the doors and wood trim, which I have a good start painting. I have some trim left to paint, but that should be done in a week or two, which is what I said a month ago; always something else that needs to be done first. After I finish painting then we need to install the new wallpaper. Should be fun. And lest we forget, I will also need to remove the sink so I can clean the tile, paint the wood trim, and wallpaper the wall behind it. And put the sink back. I do not think the City will allow me to be buried in the backyard, but I am for darn sure not moving by choice after all of this chaos and work.
