Pretty & Ugly

The Pretty.




Finally there is a hint of spring in the air. Yay!




The UGLY.




Yep. That area on the side of the house that I have been watching, the paint has totally chipped away from the house.

I don't want to think about the paint so lets look at the flower a little more.

Let's think about sunshine and spring.

NOT paint. Nasty white paint flaking away from the side of our bungalow.

Paint chipping away where it needs to stay, for at least a little longer.

It is really strange the way it is separating from the house. Almost like it is getting wet. However, there is no moisture here. I checked and double checked. No leaky roofs. I even checked out this area one day when it was raining, and made Chris check, too.

Ideas, thoughts, suggestions. ???

Our should we all just look at flowers?

Home Improvement Happiness....

It is the little things that make you happy when you are remodeling your house.


The little things like wonderful large paint blisters when stripping the trim.

Blisters on the paint, not from the paint stripper dripping on my hand. I would certainly wash that off quickly and I would certainly be wearing gloves and a mask, and safety goggles, and be in a well vented area.

I am very careful with things like that. I would not be a spur of the moment person who walked by and was totally tired of seeing the nasty old painted trim which I had given up on months ago and dropped what I was doing and dug out the paint remover.




The sad thing is that these layers were under a layer of off white and two layers of pink and a layer of burgundy paint.


And under these layers were ( actually still are) a layer of off white and a layer of dark purple ( new color find for the house). These layers do not blister. They melt into a goo.

I know now why I haven't been scraping paint for a while.

I see on Houseblogs, all of you DIYers who have great success removing paint. I hate you! Ya'll make it look so easy. You have tons of tips and suggestions. Heat guns, different products, different scrapers, toothpicks and potions. In one mighty sweep you are able to take off a hundred years worth of paint from your trim.

None of it works for me at this house anyway. Maybe it is me, maybe it is the house. Maybe we are both extremely stubborn. But the paint in this house wants to stay on the trim.

If it weren't for all the gunk under the layers of paint, I would just leave it and add to the layers.
But there is the gunk, painted over gunk. And, I hate painted over gunk.



ps. I do not have any blisters, Mom. But I did not wear gloves, or a mask, or goggles and I lived to type about it.

Foyer Walls

Foyer

1. scraping wallpaper

2. skim coat drywall mud

3. dark primer/parquet removed from floor.

4.primed bottom and painted top