Another Hot Day

It was another hot day here in Alabama. The temperature spiked at 101° at 4:00 p.m. with the heat index pegged at the 106°-114° range. I lost track on how many times I filled up and drained the Brita pitcher.

It is not cooling off at night; hence I’ve broken down and turn on the central air in the evenings. Keeping the house at 80° is good enough for me.

The end is in sight on this latest project on the front porch. There was one last strip of molding to be stripped where the siding meets the porch deck. Earlier in the morning I had the power washer out blasting the “Bejesus” out of the porch foundation. This house was originally built on brick piers. Those piers were then bricked in with a stucco finish applied upon the surface. The nearly 90 year’s accumulation of paint had to be removed. There was no way to put a fresh coat of paint over the peeling flaking surface. The pressure washer did the job quite nicely. Now, I just have to hope for a couple more days without rain to dry it all out so the primer will soak right in to give a firm foundation for the new paint.

I mixed up a batch of TSP to first wash down the house siding. This was last painted two years back when I stripped the porch ceiling. The dirt buildup was pretty intense. Using the pressure washer on low to first wet the siding, I used a scrub brush to clean off the dirt. Then I used the low setting again to rinse it all down.

After that I had to clear all the furniture off the porch and clean off the floor. An extra strong TSP solution was mixed up and dumped on the northernmost section of the floor. A broom scrubbed the mix over the designated area. The pressure washer was set to the highest setting which blasted away the dirt and residue. The entire porch was done in sections in this manner.

Here is a picture from October 1996. This was taken the trip I moved a U-Haul of my treasured belongings south. The house received a coat of white paint and grey on the porch floor to enhance the “curb appeal” for going on the market the previous spring.

I knew what I was getting into as the porch columns and the floor were already starting to peel and flake. The alligatored paint was clear evidence there was too much paint on the siding and until it was removed no paint job would be successful.

I tried to duplicate the exact same camera angle this afternoon. What a difference some 14 years makes!

I’ve decided to repaint the floor in epoxy paint in a green colour. The foundation stucco will be the “Kidskin Brown” I’ve incorporated in other areas of the house. That “Kidskin Brown” is the trim colour I used on my old house back in the early 1980’s. Once I like something I don’t easily change!

It is so funny how I can trace this project starting when I picked up those shelves from the curb on the 4^th of July. Arranging the exterior paint on those shelves sparked the fire to finally get this project finished after all these years. I learned long ago I have to act upon those impulses; otherwise my major projects will never get accomplished.