Painted House

We decided it was about time to give the outside of our house a new coat of paint. It wasn't going to be a very dramatic change (and usually I paint BECAUSE I want dramatic change) but was going to require a ton of prep work. We know because we tried this before, and never got very far.

Of course a lot of the worst parts were covered up with vinyl flashing when we replaced our windows - most new window installations now include vinyl and aluminum capping to cover the whole exterior sill. But still we needed a lot of scraping and rebuilding.

Here's an example of a spot we tried to build up that still needed a lot of work:

And here is paint to be scraped. To the left next to the rough patch is where we tried to fix 7 years ago. Even after all this time, I can still see the "ultra" white right out of the un-tinted can and how it's different from the color around it.

In the back, you can see the difference between our older "new" windows (not as old as the originals but installed before we moved in, sometime in the 90s or early 00s, where there is still exposed sill in need of help:

Versus the ones we replaced in 2014 where the sills are fully covered:

Here's the basement door, that I desperately want to replace, but that we figured was worth painting for the time being (at least it will match until I finally get a new one - especially since I've wanted a new one for years and so who knows when I'll actually get around to it):

This blog post has been mostly delayed while I go through old photos trying to find a "before" picture for the garage, which I apparently forgot to photograph before last week's painting. It was the most dramatic transformation but you'll have to take my word for it since it seems like I have no photographic evidence. Here's my thousand words, in place a picture - a cream color that matched no other exterior color, a lock that had been removed and had the hole filled in with peach-colored putty, and a door panel that was bowed out and cracked. In short, a pretty ugly sight to see (but not one worth replacing, based on the high cost estimates for a new door).

And now the afters:

A garage that actually matches the white color of our new addition, with no weird peach-colored putty. The bottom left panel is still bowed out, but the painter was able to fill in the cracks and leave it mostly unnoticeable (and at a fraction of the price of a new door):

Rebuilt, primed, and painted area under the soffit:

Scraped and painted picture window:

Freshly white area around the front door (he's actually coming back this week to give our blue front door a fresh coat as well):

 Back window sills:

 Basement door (when he comes back to do the front door, he'll go over the panes with a razor):

Since we were giving the house a nice whitening refresh, it seemed like a good time to power wash as well. We have one power washer that needs the O ring replaced, and we borrowed a neighbors that also didn't have quite enough oomph to safely get to our upper floors. So since the painter had to scrub and clean the wood areas to prepare them for painting, he also was willing to power wash the siding areas as well. Here's a before and after. Obviously his power washer had a bit more, well, power. Also he actually used some detergent, which we didn't. Green slime:

No more green slime:

A nice, relatively cheap refresh for our house that has been much needed all these years. We probably should have done it sooner! And now we have a guy to call for similar jobs, and who we'll be recommending to all our local friends.

Back from the Brink

This post has an alternate title of "My Husband is Awesome" which is maybe poorly timed for a *mothers day* weekend post. But yet again my husband has brought our laundry appliance back from near death. In 2014, the washing machine stopped agitating. In 2015, our dryer stopped heating. After apparently a year's hiatus, it was time for another problem. For a few weeks, the washing machine spun so aggressively and out of balance that I thought it would bounce its way across the basement floor. I went down several times a load to try to rearrange our wet laundry, but it never seemed to help. 

After a little reading and YouTube research, D was ready to take the whole thing apart and try to diagnose it himself. First, the top panel:

 Then all the rest:

At last, the problem! The hook (circled in red) that attached a spring between the drum and the frame had been attached at a spot that was totally rusted through (arrow) and was now freely hanging. So nothing was restraining the drum from banging all around when it was spinning.

What to do? Drill a new hole next to the hold one and reattach the spring, of course. And so in a half hour, with 0 cost, our washing machine is back in tip top shape.* Yay for handy husbands!

* I mean, as tip top as a rusty old washing machine can be. I know it's just a matter of time before there's something we can't fix. But I adore my totally dumb, manual mechanic appliance and will be so sad when we finally have to buy a new fangled "smart" one.