If anyone would have been sitting on their front lawn watching yesterday, they would have diagnosed me with ADHD.
The two big girls were playing and riding bikes in front and the two little ones were down for naps. (Score! Two sleeping at the same time!) I decided it was time to bust out my new heat gun for a little trial on the storm windows. These window have 87 years of paint on them, so I figured they'd be a good candidate for the heat gun.
Clearly, I have given up on staging my photos. There's the heat gun with a bunch of random debris in the background.
I dragged out the sawhorses, heat gun, extension cord and started taking the storm window down. The window required some tools to get it unstuck and I was sure I was going to break the glass trying to get it off but luckily I was able to get off without incident.
I fired up the heat gun and it worked great! So sorry that I didn't take photos of the process...I was just too excited to stop once I got started. I will post a heat gun tutorial in a future post for those who are interested. Anyway, the heat gun stripped that storm window down to bare wood. Amazing.
Um, so now what do I do? I didn't exactly have a next step in mind when I got out the heat gun. I haven't decided on a paint color even though I've had paint color swatches painted on the windows for weeks. None of the colors were singing to me. And Greg told me that I can't just leave different paints up for months on the exterior like I do on the inside before painting. He's so square.
Now that the wood was bare, I couldn't just leave it without doing something to it.
I ran into the house and got my hand sander and sanded the window smooth. Okay, now I'll just grab the two paint pots of the colors I liked best. Which one? This is so much pressure. This is the color on the exterior that passers-by will judge me on. The color has to proclaim to the world how fun and incredibly cool we are. I have to get this color right or no one will want to hang out with us. Ever.
I gulped and chose the color that Greg liked the best. This is usually the best strategy when I am in doubt. I painted two coats, let it dry and hung the window back up. And you guys? I hate the color. It's awful, just awful. So now I've wasted all that precious, double napping time on a project that I loathe. And now I have one storm window on my house painted an awful color. People are probably gathering on the sidewalk right now pointing at the house and laughing while I hide inside.
Okay. Switch gears. I hate the paint project so I will start a new project. Which one, which one? I'll try the heat gun on the house trim just to see if it works as well as it did on the storm window. It works great on that, too. Laura, that was a dumb idea. You don't have any paint for that area either. JUST PUT DOWN YOUR COOL NEW POWER TOOL AND WALK AWAY. Ok, just do one more little spot in the windowsill to see if it works there where the paint in all chipped. And NOW WALK AWAY FROM YOUR POWER TOOL.
Switch gears. Put down heat gun and clean up mess. Oh, there's too much dirt in the flower bed and it overflows onto the sidewalk when it rains. I'll rake the excess dirt away. There's a manageable project. I rake the excess into a pile at the edge of the flower bed. I think I've raked away too much. I do it over.
Marielle is awake now and I have to abandon all tasks. Well, at least I got the flower bed raked. Maybe that window will look better to me in the morning.
I've been spending the past hour googling houses with similar brick colors to try to nail down some colors. I've been thinking about a blue-gray color but that just doesn't seem to be working. I am always drawn to just a simple cream, but come on. I gotta try something just a little different.
After some searching, I am gravitating toward a gray-green for the outer trim and a lighter gray for the storm windows, similar to this:
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