Finished Painting House

A few years ago, I thought anyone going on a ladder at heights or getting on a roof was crazy. The thoughts that even the slightest slip could cause the person to plunge to the ground and likely die, I don’t like to think about it.

But, last week, a neighbor asked me to help them paint their house and I agreed. I have the ladders needed to do it because of my business. As I was doing the project, I felt like backing out several times but made a commitment and was going to stick to it. My concerns weren’t limited to the height. I was working with paint that likely contained lead.

I took precautions by wearing gloves, a respirator and cleaning up areas.

Best practices is to remove the shutters but the screws were rusted and stripped, and the shutters were brittle. I covered them with plastic. I did run into an issue with the plastic blowing. At thirty feet up, I was dealing with wind blowing the plastic covering off and having to go up and down the ladder to fix it.

I used a Wagner paint sprayer at the beginning but the machines started acting up. I spent the better part of a day or two dealing with clogging and dripping. Dripping when working near someone’s roof is definitely not good. I ultimately went to the store and spent $180 for a new machine to give me the time I needed to fix the first machine. I was on a deadline and needed the project done. I get frustrated when a project should take twenty hours but ends up taking thirty or forty.

The end result is the house is painted, I also fixed their front walk and rear stairs.