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It has been a BUSY 7 months!

Archived from the Tools In Action forum (Around The House). This thread is read-only.

rrich1Member since Jun 2015
Earlier this year I posted pics of my deck that my brother in law and I built. I then built a table, benches, and some Adirondack chairs. All between March and April. Here is a before pic and then one after the deck. 
 
 
After the deck I decided to  tackle the landscaping. When we built the deck we pulled out and set aside over 1500 brick. Well to reuse the brick, I mortered it around the west, south, and east sides of the house. This took a few months as I did it all myself while working full time and dealing with the wife and two kids under 3. Having this been a first time doing this I hope it is the last time in my life that I do it! 
 
 
rrich1Member since Jun 2015
With the deck and landscaping looking good I decided I wanted to paint the house. Hail damaged our roof so a replacement was in the future. The most regarded roofing company in the area was 3 months out and I decided it would allow me enough time to paint the house. I initially thought about painting it next year but with a new roof coming I figured I could cut my prep time down by not worrying about taping or caring if paint got on the roof. After a few different shades we decided on  Benjamin Moore colors “Old Navy” and “Bright Yellow” with the trim white for the ” Pop” factor. I purchased Sherwin Williams paint with their 40% off sale in July and had it tinted the day before I started to paint. I spent all of August prepping the house. Power washed, scrubbed, scraped, primed, replacement of 100′ of ceder siding, and replaced brick molding around the garage doors and side garage door. 





 

At the start of September i began to paint. Right off the bat I had problems with my sprayer and wasted a whole weekend. I finally got it figured out and was on my way. With the blue it took 3 coats of paint. During painting, I replaced our front door, put in a new storm door, replaced the lighting, took out our pole light, built a floating number plaque, and I built a wood rack. I finally finished up the painting last week and couldn’t be happier with how it turned out! My neighbor was a painter for over 50 years and is very pleased with it. 

 

With the paint done last week our roof was set to be replaced this week. They started on Tuesday and immediately ran into plywood problems. We had a leak in our sunroom which I knew would need repaired but they found moisture/mold on a total of 52 boards which all would be replaced. Knowing I basically have a brand new roof I am not upset a out it. The roof had a brown tone in it before and it matched much better now being a gray tone. Hope you enjoyed the pics! It was a great learning experience as I did everything myself besides the deck. 







ChrisKMember since Dec 2012

Beautiful job Rich. That’s something to be proud of!

rrich1Member since Jun 2015

ChrisK1970 wrote:

Beautiful job Rich. That’s something to be proud of!

Thanks! My neighbors were skeptical of the paint color at first. We painted the doors on our shed to get an idea of what it would look like with the white. The all love it and I constantly get compliments on it. Funny is now there are two other houses within two blocks of me painted either a blue or sided in a blue tone. 

BigmikezMember since Jun 2013

Man everything came out amazing great job!!

krutonMember since Jun 2015

Busy is an understatement man. That’s a lot of work and turned out great. We have a house that is almost identical in color as yours down the street from us and I love it. Looks great with the white trim. Nice work brother!

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rrich1Member since Jun 2015

Thanks guys! Next year we are going to focus on the actual landscape. I had the weeds under control last year and it kinda took a backseat this year.

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NERemodelingMember since Aug 2014

Excellent work!! What a transformation!!

BMack37Member since Sep 2015

That looks fantastic, great work!

DR99Member since Nov 2012

Looks great Rich!!!  You did the one thing I hate the most painting. I went through the same thing when I resided my garage people though I was crazy the colors I picked, but once they went up it came out awesome.

MikeyBMember since Dec 2014

Beautiful work man….

rrich1Member since Jun 2015

Jasonc wrote:

Looks great Rich!!! You did the one thing I hate the most painting. I went through the same thing when I resided my garage people though I was crazy the colors I picked, but once they went up it came out awesome.

I think I would paint my house two times over as long as I never had to do the brick work again!

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Poisonfangs85Member since Feb 2015

Awesome job rich!!! What color is your siding? My wife wants a color like that when we redo ours

rrich1Member since Jun 2015

Poisonfangs85 wrote:

Awesome job rich!!! What color is your siding? My wife wants a color like that when we redo ours

It’s “old navy” from Benjamin Moore. It is a true navy and not purple.

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Poisonfangs85Member since Feb 2015

rrich1 wrote:

It’s “old navy” from Benjamin Moore. It is a true navy and not purple.

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It’s funny you say that about the purple. She pointed out a house in the next town with the dark blue siding. I drove by it this summer with the afternoon sun and the house looked like plum crazy purple. Thanks for the color buddy, and again great job!

comp56Member since Sep 2014

smart looking home, good for you!

DR99Member since Nov 2012

One thing you might want to do later is replace the mulch with landscaping rock and weed barrier. It costs more and is back breaking but long term is so much less maintenance. After dealing with mulch for a few years I got tired of having to redo and dress it up all the time. It did come out awesome though you deserve a winter break this year 🙂

rrich1Member since Jun 2015

Jasonc wrote:

One thing you might want to do later is replace the mulch with landscaping rock and weed barrier. It costs more and is back breaking but long term is so much less maintenance. After dealing with mulch for a few years I got tired of having to redo and dress it up all the time. It did come out awesome though you deserve a winter break this year 🙂

thanks. I know brick is less maintenance over time but I like the look of mulch better. Plus if I have to ever change anything the mulch is much easier to deal with than the rock. 

KnarlyCarlMember since Jan 2016

rrich1 wrote:

thanks. I know brick is less maintenance over time but I like the look of mulch better. Plus if I have to ever change anything the mulch is much easier to deal with than the rock.

Question:will the brick heave and break apart from freezing/thawing cycles?

Looks very very nice and tasteful by the way, I gotta do something about my exterior as well

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rrich1Member since Jun 2015

KnarlyCarl wrote:

Question:will the brick heave and break apart from freezing/thawing cycles?

Looks very very nice and tasteful by the way, I gotta do something about my exterior as well

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we have had some cyc;es this winter, ill try and check tomorrow. every so often when i started i tried to cut a slit all the way down to leave room for expansion. im pretty sure i forgot to continue that half way through. 

 

thanks for the kind words. the paint has held up great so far. which i am ecstatic about. 

WigWagWorkshopMember since May 2015

Amazing craftsmanship! Inspiring me to spruce up our yard in the spring, I have a few ideas in the planning stages, one of which is to build a gazebo in the center of the backyard.

WeldfabNeilMember since May 2015

Looks great, nice work.

chadlanthierMember since Mar 2013

That looks awesome, my house and yard have definitely been neglected and that’s going to be my next big project next summer.

rrich1Member since Jun 2015

Thanks everyone. Happy to say the paint is holding up well lol. [emoji16]

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KnarlyCarlMember since Jan 2016

rrich1 wrote:

Thanks everyone. Happy to say the paint is holding up well lol. [emoji16]

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How did you like the graco sprayer? Pros, cons? Anything in particular you could pass on to interested people (Me)?

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rrich1Member since Jun 2015

KnarlyCarl wrote:

How did you like the graco sprayer? Pros, cons? Anything in particular you could pass on to interested people (Me)?

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I had one issue with the sprayer. At some point I didn’t tighten the connection between the gun and the hose. This caused the pressure to cut a line in the threads. This made it not seal properly and paint would spray out the connection between the gun and hose. I wasted over a day finally getting it figured out between Sherwin Williams, graco, and Menard’s. Of course this happened on a Saturday with limited resources available. Sherwin Williams was great with replacement hoses after I bought the first replacement there. Menard’s was also great in replacing the $100 handle for free (bought the whole sprayer there).

I used the graco project painter plus. This unit is stand alone with the paint staying in the container on the ground. I wasn’t about to paint my house having to refill a bottle all the time let alone lugging it on every swipe of paint. This painter also isn’t a serviceable unit. If the motor goes out it is done. Smaller things like fittings can be replaced.

Having different size tips is great. I ended up using a smaller size for the whole house rather than the larger it comes with. I would also suggest an extension for the gun. I bought a 15″ extension and it was immensely helpful. Being able to spray larger areas without moving cut the lap marks down a lot.

I modeled the process of painting after a series of YouTube videos called how to paint your house right. A ten part series I believe with each step well explained.

Any other questions let me know and I’ll be happy to answer them.

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red tool addictMember since Feb 2016

Curb appeal is 100 times better now! Looks great!

rrich1Member since Jun 2015

red tool addict wrote:

Curb appeal is 100 times better now! Looks great!

thank you. i havent tired of looking at it yet!

regopitMember since Feb 2013

Sorry I’m late to the party but it looks real nice.Great work

FazzmanMember since Apr 2014

your home looks beautiful man,nice work. Thank you for sharing,im anxious for warmer weather so I can start doing stuff. We did our roof last year made a huge difference. With the crazy drought here in California its hard keeping great looking yard.

rrich1Member since Jun 2015

Fazzman wrote:

your home looks beautiful man,nice work. Thank you for sharing,im anxious for warmer weather so I can start doing stuff. We did our roof last year made a huge difference. With the crazy drought here in California its hard keeping great looking yard.

thanks. 

 

the goal this year is the actual landscaping. I was on it the year before and the yard looked great. I got side tracked obviously with other stuff and neglected the yard. I would love to put an apple tree at the end of the deck but the ones I would want need another tree for pollination but I dont have any room for that. I have two brother in laws who do landscaping so Ill have them design and pick out flowers/shrubs. 

KnarlyCarlMember since Jan 2016

rrich1 wrote:

….I would love to put an apple tree at the end of the deck but the ones I would want need another tree for pollination but I dont have any room for that….

This is true if you want apples. Another thing would be to plant a small crab apple tree, but maybe there’s not even room for that. …

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JimboS1iceMember since Sep 2015

I would try to keep fruit trees away from the deck, when they bare their fruit and whatever falls can start to make a mess I.f you can’t get to it to clean up in time.

Jimbo

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rrich1Member since Jun 2015

I highly doubt there will be any type of tree there. I spoke with my bro in law and suggested for him to start working on shrubbery for the landscape.

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KnarlyCarlMember since Jan 2016

rrich1 wrote:

I highly doubt there will be any type of tree there. I spoke with my bro in law and suggested for him to start working on shrubbery for the landscape.

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That will still look nice either way. I love having trees around my house, have five big maples (soft) then I planted 10 more around when i bought the place.

The soft maples drop branches here and there, as they are known for, and I will be sad to see them go, it’s just a matter of time because I think one is hollow

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rrich1Member since Jun 2015

I’ve got quite a bit of trees already which is nice. Fall kinda sucks but the deck is basically shaded throughout the day though.

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