A Weekend of Painting

It’s a long weekend here in Saskatchewan (and most of Canada) and I’ve been painting all weekend… Unfortunately it’s not the sort of painting I usually post about on this blog. (It’s not even the sort of painting I post about on the other blog!). No, dear friends, I was house painting.

If you’ve been reading a while you may remember back in the spring me making dire predictions about how my productivity was about to drop sharply due to immanent renovations that were to occur at my abode. We has talked to a couple of younger fellows about a year about about taking on the project and they were not only willing to do it, they seemed rather keen to take on this sort of project – which is in sharp contrast to the attitude of most builders in this town who would all tell us to tear down our house and build a new one… They originally said they would like to start as early as they could. May, perhaps April if the snow was gone…

Well, things got held up… and they didn’t end up STARTING until the end of July – when they’d originally told us they’d be DONE! (which would have given me most of August to do the few things I was going to do on my own – painting, flooring, some finish work…). When they started in July they told us they’d be done and gone in 6 weeks. It’s now mid October and there’s still a LOT of work to be done – and this is causing me some anxiety as they still need to finish getting the exterior insulation up, roofing, and stucco done and winter is fast approaching – it is dropping well below 0°C at night which is going to make stuccoing a bit of a challenge!

Anyway, here’s some pics of what’s been going on…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version):

This is what our house looked like at the end of July.

Three pics of the upstairs all cleared out ready to go – keep an eye on that stairwell and the low ceiling and chimney beside it (that any adult would have to duck and walk hunched over past to get into our room upstairs).

Here’s what the house is currently looking like from the outside.

Essentially we needed a new roof and some insulation. The existing walls are brick with wood-chips inbetween – completely inadequate for a region that gets to -40°C (and below!) in winter. While we were at it we figured it might be nice to build a dormer upstairs and replace all the ancient windows that had long since been painted shut.

It turned out easier to just tear the whole roof off than cut holes for some dormers and so we’ve essentially gotten a whole second story where there was previously just a half-story-loft-like room…

So this weekend we packed the kids off to their grandparents and Amanda and I have been painting the walls upstairs all day for the last few days….

That’s me way up there perched precariously over the stairwell cutting the white for the ceiling. This is one of those time where having such a hobby has really come to bite me in the ass. Amanda reasoned that because I have such a steady hand and keen eye (painting all those wee miniatures and all!) that I should do all of the cutting. I tried to point out that I don’t often paint miniatures while perched on a rickety ladder and have to reach my brushed out so far to paint miniatures… This was even less fun the next day when I had to paint a straight line around those fiddley bits between the wall and ceiling…

Amanda rolling the ceiling.

By Sunday we were on to the walls.

Amanda rolling the first coat of purple.

First coat on the walls done.

Me again, cutting the second coat of purple on the walls.

Last night, starting the red in the bathroom.

Today we’re just finishing  up the red in the bathroom and dark purple in the little alcove-like-area in the front dormer… We’ve got a bit of a wait between coats so Amanda’s off to a yoga class and I thought I’d update the blog(s).

Last week they were starting on the new windows in all the rooms – here are the new windows that went into the Hobby Dungeon/War Room.

As I predicted, my productivity has dropped sharply since they began. At the end of June I was sitting at 600 28mm foot painted so far this year – averaging 100 per month… Now, at mid October, I’m sitting at 755… less than 50 per month since all this began. This is largely due to having to shift all the stuff from upstairs to the main floor or basement. Which has meant we are constantly working around boxes of stuff and I can’t really maintain a semi-permanent workstation that I can just sit down and paint at for a few minutes here and there when I have an idle moment… I actually have to tidy up a space, get stuff out, paint for a bit, then clear it all away…

This weekend hasn’t been a total loss hobby-wise. I’ve been finishing up a few Americans and Australians for the Vietnam war – I recently tracked down a copy of The Odd Angry Shot - one of my all time favourite war movies – which I haven’t seen in probably 20 years because I’ve never been able to, before now, find a Region 1 DVD of it! Strangely it’s been released by a company that seems to mostly do asian-cult-horror-erotic movies…? Whatever, it’s still a good flick and has inspired me to finish up my Vietnam Aussies!

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Said Vitenam figures; Aussies, LRRPs, Grenadiers with M79s… 

Maybe it's time to do some thinking ahead and planning for the winter and next year...