Holy Crow

Well, I did it.  I painted over the yellow paint on the west side of the house.

Before I did it, I told The Ghost of Mr. Kelly that I knew it isn't really the right thing to do but that I didn't see any way around it.  (So far he hasn't haunted me about it.)  There's a whole host of reasons for that decision, but they all boil down to these two things:

1.  That paint ain't comin' off the house without using power tools to grind it off, and I'm loathe to do that because it damages the clapboards.  This I know from using WTB's Metabo paint stripper last year and tearing up clapboards and window trim.  Yikes.

2.  I'd rather add to the many, many layers of paint now and take a chance (and it's a pretty good likelihood) that it'll all curl up like dry leaves in three years or so.  If it does--or, when it does--I can get the paint off with a pull scraper and not tear up the house.

That sounds like I'm justifying my decision, and I guess I am.  This was a decision I struggled with, probably more than I should have.  I thought I might feel bad about it, but then just before supper I stepped back from the house to text back WTB, looked up, and realized that now the whole west side of the house is gray.

Holy crow.

That's a great feeling.  One whole side of the house. And a long side, too.  (My house is a lot longer front-to-back than it is side-to-side.)  Then it occurred to me that I have about a half day's work left and all the painting on the west side of the house will be done.  That's given me a huge mental boost and motivation towards the rest of the house.

Which is good, because everything else I've gotten done over the past two days doesn't look like much in a photo.  Weird how the house looks almost exactly the same after the second coat of paint as it did with only one coat of paint...Holy crow, indeed.  Invisible progress.