Good neighbors

A few weeks ago, my attached neighbor and I hired another neighbor to strip the front porch floors and railings, reseal, and repaint all the trim across the front of the house. He’s a really nice guy who, as far as I can determine, knows how to do just about everything. He has been working in his spare time, which is fine with us—he charges a ridiculously small fee for his work and for that we can afford to be patient. In the process, he has also replaced some trim that had rotted and fixed the eaves which had pulled away from the roof in a couple of places. He’s completed everything except for my porch floor, though he finished stripping it yesterday. This morning he began work on my deck.

A few years ago I made the serious mistake of painting the railings with latex paint, which doesn’t weather well. Latex paint likes to peel in spots, but clings like glue in others. This morning he brought his power washer over and has been stripping that latex paint off with gusto. There’s very little left now. I’ll have to do some sanding and scraping, here and there, to get the last little bits off, but that’s going to be a fairly small job. Now I have an oil-based white stain and, when everything is dried out and cleaned up, I’ll slap that on. No more messing with peeling paint. YAY!

By the time the snow flies, my house will be in pretty good shape and look all brand new again.