Back to painting...

Our longest ongoing project so far has been repainting the house. Not just slapping on another coat of paint, but stripping the old paint down to bare wood, then priming with a high quality oil-based primer and doing at least two coats of good latex paint. It's labor intensive and slow, but the results are excellent. This year, we're hoping to finish the project -- at least, the first and second floors. The third floor has a different type of siding, and we've agreed that it all needs to be replaced.

All that remains to be redone is the front and side of the guest room on the second floor, (you can see the front of the guest room in the picture to the right) as well as the bump out of the dining room on the first floor and the master bedroom on the second floor. Compared to the big wall we finished last year in terms of square footage, there is far less siding... but where the big wall had only three windows, the remaining walls have nine -- and all but one will need to be reframed!

It'll be a bit of work, just as always, but we've gotten pretty good at building window frames. Also, since 6 of the windows are on the second floor, and thus aren't as visible to the ground, we can use knotty red cedar for the casing. Down by the ground, we've opted to go with the clear red cedar, which carries a premium price... but without any knots, it gives a better appearance which holds up to direct inspection better.