Wednesday, September 7, 2011

I love my old house

The old house received another coat of paint this summer and I wondered to myself when it was being put on how many times the house had been painted.

The color has remained the same since I was just a little girl old enough to remember the color.

At one time perhaps 70 or 80 years ago when my dad first purchased the house it must have been painted yellow because every so often if the paint is scraped down to the bare wood you see yellow.

Today so many homes have siding that doesn’t need painting for many years, if at all.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was going to paint the ceiling of our front porch, which I haven’t done yet.

I still plan on doing it, but in the past several weeks I have been painting in other places.

When you live in an old house there is always something to do, those little fix-ups, paint-ups that go on from one year to the next in different places.

Our back porch is the one we sit on the most. One side of the porch needed replacing as the panels and front were decayed.

Fortunately I have a cousin, who is retired and is handy in woodworking. I encouraged him to fix my porch with the idea that I would paint his new woodwork.

I figured it was a good time to repaint the floor. I love to paint, so for some of these weeks

I have kept busy doing something I like.

However, when you paint a floor, you want to make it known that there is wet paint there. I paint with oil-based paint which dried much slower than water-based paint.

Folks arriving at the house were met with a sawhorse across the steps with a “fresh paint” sign applied to it. Other times I have used two bushel crates with a board across informing those who approach to use another entrance.

If you are a homeowner and you enjoy doing these little tasks, isn’t there a big satisfaction when you have completed your job?

Have you ever completed a job where you painted perhaps a floor and then had someone mistakenly walk on it while not entirely dry? Have you ever noticed when masons are putting in a new sidewalk, wall or whatever, someone couldn’t resist the temptation to write a name or maybe the date in the wet concrete?

On 5/23/53, I couldn’t resist when my dad was putting in a pair of steps. It was covered over with grass and forgotten until it was uncovered by a weedeater and brought back memories.

Dated, painted, scratched or engraved on so many things in a house are long-forgotten sometimes until someone discovers them.

Old houses have many interesting mysteries you may find when you acquire property.

Sometimes little doors that were built-in to get to plumbing fixtures, a hole in the wall or cut-out that you cannot fathom why it was placed in that particular spot and there is no one to ask about it. Sometimes “things” that were left in the attic that you acquire and wonder about.

Old houses can sure be interesting.

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