Tedious

I spent the better part of last week building the porch and balcony railings for the Manchester. Tedious best describes the work: measuring, cutting, painting--with both a latex primer coat and paint. I built the stairs and assembled the balcony, painted both the porch, the stairs, and the balcony gray. I painted the underneath of the balcony--the ceiling of the porch-- blue to match the shutters, but then I decided that I liked it better as the floor for the balcony. 

Now, all of those pieces are finished and tomorrow I can install the porch and the balcony.

I have visions of hanging baskets lush with red geraniums. Maybe some whicker furniture, though the porch is very narrow and won't accommodate big pieces of furniture. I'm excited to see the front of this lovely house finished.

While the paint dries, I have a little paint story to share: I purchased the blue latex interior house paint last fall to paint the kitchen cabinets, the two front doors, and the shutter accent on the exterior of the windows. As with all of my project paints, I store them in the basement and have never had any problem with any paint--real house otherwise--going bad. However, when I opened up this can of blue paint the other day, it had an awful odor, but I stirred it up and began to paint the balcony. Even thought it stank so badly, I finished painting the balcony pieces, which stank up the basement. I began to feel sick, so I took the pieces out to the garage to cure. Feeling sicker as I came back in the house, I laid down and fell asleep, wondering just how toxic the paint was.

Feeling better after a nap, I took my can of stinky paint to the hardware wrote where I purchased it. The lady was so kind and replaced my can of paint, explaining that paint does go bad and will stink, but assured me that it was a water based paint and wasn't toxic. She offered to replace the paint, so I took white since I use a lot of white, thinking that I was finished with the blue.

Once home I realized that I still had to add a door to the sink cabinet for the kitchen that would need to be painted blue and the balcony was going to need a second coat. Darn it! So I went back today and purchased the blue paint.

These are the paint products that I like to use. I buy the large can of primer because it goes on everything as a base coat and the sample size latex interior paint at our local Ace Hardware store. The paint does tend to thicken over time, so I transfer a small amount to a container and  thin it down with a small amount of water, which makes it spread much easier and more smoothly.

In between coats, I use an emory board to sand the rough spots. 

I still have more exterior trim to cut, paint and install, so here is yesterday's challenge: Cutting an accurate angle for this peak triangle.

 

This is a tricky angle to cut. I remembered the struggle that I had cutting the trim for the peaks of Bellingham, ending up a gap that I filled with caulking so that the gap wouldn't show. 

This time I remembered a handy little gadget that my husband had given me and hoped that I could find it. It's called an angle protractor that you can find here on Amazon (just click on the links). 

In the name of transparency, I will confess that I had to call my husband downstairs to help me use the thing--he was a machinist and knows this stuff.

Now I have an accurate angle--fingers crossed.

I have three methods now for cutting the prefect angle accurately. The  miter saw in this case won't work because I can't cut the correct angle. I can lay the trim on a flat surface and use the miter saw, but I have a better idea.

Last summer my sweet husband bought me these two tools that have made my mini making so much easier. You can find this little saw here: Lowes. It's sort of a gig saw so it will make nice clean straight cuts as well as curved cuts.

The sander has been a great boon, too, also found at Lowes. This tool has made some sanding projects so much easier, especially when you need to take a wee bit off for a good fit, making some of those hand sanding chores much easier. It has two sanding platforms for a variety of projects. Check it out. I used both of these little machines to cut the pieces for the porch and balcony railing.

  

I don't like cutting so close to end of a piece of lumber because I don't as much control over feeding the wood toward the blade.

Even with the safety guard down, I am still nervous.

Instead, I use the sander that efficiently eats away the excess wood, creating a very clean angle for me.

I ended up with a nice mitered corner that I did all by myself today for one of the side peaks. One more to go. Yes, the trim will extend beyond the peak of the roof, but that will be okay once the shingles are on. I think a narrower trim would have avoided this problem, but I used what came with the kit. 

  

  

I've moved the house once again so that I can access both sides. I need to secure it to the base yet, as well. I'm playing around with the cutting sky lights in the addition roof since the room is so dark. Hubby will help me with that project.

The windows now have their "glass" installed and actually are permanently in place. Since they fit so tightly, I didn't glue them in place. I still have to finish the round window, though.

Not much else going on this week. It's a quite one, so I'll get a lot done on the house--maybe I'll have the exterior finished by my next post. 

Wishing you a wonderful week. Thanks for stopping by.