Scraping By - A Build Post

I think our neighbor Dave thinks I'm nuts (I *know* our neighbor John does).

The other day, Dave saw me out in the early evening scraping the garage siding. "What are you doing?" he asked. 

"Needs painting" I responded. "And the best paint job is in the prep."

"Who's going to paint it?"

"I am. It's only the garage."

Which remains my response. I admit that doing the whole house is probably too much for me anymore (and besides, watching our neighbors Dick and Martha get their whole place scraped, primed, and painted in the course of 3 days was pretty incredible.) But the garage I can handle, especially the siding, which is where I am starting.

But even that takes a lot. I have spent much of the past week scraping down the siding, and I'm pleased to say I'm done with 3 sides of it, with only part of the south side to go. That's the area that takes the most work, like removing ornamentation and cleaning out the flower boxes (including the one that was home to an abandoned nest of dead baby bunnies, sadly enough). I'm close to being able to prime.

It's also let to some other amusing conversations. 2 millennials walk by in the alley, on their way to the bar — "That's a lot of paint chips, have you tested for lead?"

"No."

"Oh no, really? You should. It's *very* dangerous you know."

"There's no lead in this paint."

"No, really, you should always test paint for it, especially in old houses."

"It's a new garage."

"No, man, that's been here forever!"

(sigh)

I'm excited to get it painted, and to get our back yard in nice shape before we head to Summit for the summer. Redoing the window boxes, hopefully adding some new string lights, putting down new wood chips, hopefully adding some new plants (I transplanted some yarrow and put radish seeds in the ground yesterday), maybe fixing the pond — it should all be great. You should come over and have a drink!