Paint Memories

I'm here to tell you, Mother Nature doesn't like it when people paint their house. Most of us have heard the old saying, "You washed your car? Oh, now it will rain." No folks, Mother Nature really looks for people who play with exterior paint, and I'm not talking about the person who just has someone spray over what's there, I mean those of us who really get into the job.

Take the neighbor for example. They've got a nice old style Portland house they've decided to strip down to the bare wood and paint. When the strippers got the paint off it rained, after a week of perfect weather.

Then came the primer. Oil based, which I feel is the better choice, and some latex filler for cracks and things. Looking good. Then it rained. Hard.

Now comes the final stage. I can hear the sound of a paint sprayer. I look out the window and sure enough, gray clouds gather in the distance like wolves studying the prey. The window trim is all that is done. Makes sense. Get the windows, then mask them, get the trim, mask it, then shoot the rest of the house. It's going to look great, but nature is determined to test the quality of the work.

When I did the strip and paint thing, I was lucky with the weather. We hired a painter to do the bottom half, and I stripped, fixed, primed and painted the top half. Never got a drop of rain at any time. There was that thing called September 11th right in the middle of it. A Tuesday. I was going to put primer on the south side of the house. Didn't get anything done for a few days after that. Then I was back on the ladder looking up at blue skies. No planes. No birds either. Nobody was flying.