A Quick Fix For The Back Of The House

Our old farmhouse has certainly weathered the elements in its 194 years of life.  Most of the house proves that they don’t build homes like they used to, but there are a few spots that need major fixing up.

I’m not sure how many times the outside of our house has been painted, but what I am sure of is the last time it was painted, the job wasn’t completed well.  Poorly, to be frank.  The previous owners wanted to sell the house, so they had it painted right before they put it on the market, but the painter didn’t scrape nor sand.  He (or she) just painted over the old paint, chips, cracks, etc.

Because of the lack of proper attention, there are some boards that are borderline rotten and need to be replaced.  But while we are saving up to fine-tune the outside of the house, there are a few places that need to be scraped, sanded and painted; just to tide us over until the budget permits us to fix / paint the entire exterior.

The back of the house, above the back porch, was in sad shape.  Rain seems to hit that side of the house the most, and paint was chipping and peeling all over.

So I kind of  tossed my fear of heights aside, set up the step ladder, scraper, sander, and paint and got to work.

Some of the paint peeled right off, while other parts needed only a light scrape to remove the old paint.

I scraped and removed paint that was absolutely necessary, and that couldn’t make it through another winter as is.  Remember, this is just to tide us over to hopefully next spring.

Once the area was scraped, I started to paint, and that old wood sucked up that paint.  Immediately I knew 2 coats of paint were needed.

I only painted with a large brush, which took what seems like forever to get that first coat of paint on.

I let it dry for a day then got back out there to paint on the second coat.

Such a difference.

When all the funds necessary are saved up, we’re hiring professional painters to do the entire job properly.  We also have all of the shutters in our barn, for each window of the house.  We will have those cleaned, scraped, sanded and painted black.

But for now, this will have to be suffice.  Sure is better than what it was, indeed.