DIY Sarah

Craft, Decor, Art, Garden, and Dessert

House Update- June 9/10

Big news, we got a Kitten!

The newest member of the family is Vector Wolpert. He’s a cuddly little kitten that also loves to play. He loves his Daddy most of all which is adorable!

Oh, we also did some work this weekend. We got the rest of the pieces for the porch and we have to get them primed before they get installed. That meant lots of bending over and working with the sprayer. I got this sprayer:

and it is awesome. The paint and sprayer are on a long tube from the air compressor which keeps the sprayer light and easy to maneuver. The hose is plenty long enough and I love the way it makes getting a nice thin coat so easy. I did thin the KILZ Complete with a bit of paint thinner to make it spray faster. It will spray the thicker but it just doesn’t go as fast and I was all about speed and the coverage seems plenty adequate to protect the wood from water damage. I elected to use a paintbrush to really get the endgrain well covered. After using the sprayer though, the paintbrush seems tedious and boring. Painting is so much more fun with a power tool.

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Stefan worked on making a jig to cut the ends of the square balusters. The bottom rail is angled to prevent water from pooling on the bottom rail. It also gives it a really substantial look which I liked. Since the bottom rail is peaked. Stefan has to cut the ends of each post to have a notch to rest nice and tight on the peak. We are also mounting the balusters on the diagonal which was what was originally on the house. That just makes the notches even more complicated. There are 210 balusters so Stefan still has a bit of work to do! After Stefan cuts them, I will paint the cut edges with KILZ primer to seal up the end grain.

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I got most everything primed but I have a couple pieces to touch up and a couple pieces that I didn’t get a chance to flip and get the back side. I’ll get those finished up this coming weekend and hopefully the porch guys can get things installed shortly thereafter. I can’t wait to see the beautiful new porch!

Sarah