Painting the Painted Lady

painted lady

The last time that we had our entire house painted was eleven years ago. Unbelievable! We hired a company that specializes in old houses, and they know how to prep an aging lady for her face lift. The paint held up great, but around a year ago the handrails began to rot. We purchased all the wood pieces for the 2003 remodel of the front porch from Vintage Woodworks, a company that caters to the Victorian era house market. When we contacted them, they blamed the painter. And of course the painter felt that the wood failed. The proverbial he said, they said. We ended up having a local contractor rebuild the railings, so it seemed timely to paint the house once those were installed. We hired the same painting company as last time, and hope we get the same long-term results.

porch detail

When the house was painted in 2004, we selected eight different paint colors. Because that was suchan arduous process, we are keeping the same color palette. We loved it, so why mess with a good thing? We are now in week three of the process. The first six days were sanding and scraping, followed by power washing the house. I was so relieved when that was done! The work is coming along, and the entire house has been primed and the base coat applied to the siding. The trim colors are complete, with the exception of the front of the house. That will be more time consuming as there are many spindles to paint, with multiple colors going on each one.

We had some big excitement on Tuesday morning. Around 11:30 the truck of one of the painters was stolen from right out in front of our house. Three of the painters were parked in a row, and his was the middle vehicle. Now, I have to admit that he had left his window down and the keys in the ignition, but how ballsy to steal the truck in broad daylight with so many men around! Plus the neighbor across the street had a contractor parked in front of his house, and he was in and out carrying items from his vehicle to the house. An eye witness caught a glimpse of the perp, and the police were called immediately. I was somewhat optimistic that the police would catch him on Interstate 44, but unfortunately that did not happen. Instead, they caught two of them with the stolen truck last night in the City of St. Louis while they were in the process of robbing someone. The truck was impounded, and from what the painter was told the back window had been smashed, and his tool boxes were missing. He doesn't know how much other damage was done to it. I feel so bad for him as he just had one last payment to make on the truck. All I know is that these criminals are getting more and more bold. And our painter now gets to play the adult version of Hot Wheels.