Friday, March 20, 2009

House Painting Progress


Here's the back of the house before. Our bedroom is behind those windows and the wall to the right is where we get bat crap or bird crap splatter in the middle of the night when it gets creepy. I pressure washed the house before painting but the splatters left little brown marks so I had to prime that wall before painting.


Here's the front with my jungle green porch area (which is the same green inside) and the Tropical Mango on the rest. I have done two coats of trim, the green is done on the upper house and three walls of Mango are done. I haven't touched the rejas yet - the Jungle Green area will have green rejas and the mango areas and balcony will have mango rejas.

Here's another view coming up the long driveway. Oh, another thing on the "to do" list is to spray a copper fungicide on all the chinas (13). I pruned them when we first got here, and if I do a copper fungicide they will be all revitalized and ready to provide us with too many oranges!


Here's the view from the carport. The stuff that looks light green isn't painted and will be the dark green. The inside will be mango. I still have to pressure wash down here and do some scraping/patching and prime it since there are a couple "powdery" areas. We also will be adding things to the area for the batteries and switches required for going off the grid with solar. I'll keep paint for touch-ups.


The back is primed and ready for mango next week. No more splatter.

Here's a side view with the gingers in the foreground.

Here's the real work that is left. This wall needs to be pressure washed, primed and painted (mango). Before I can do that though we have to move the plastic shed, the conduit along the bottom leading to the cement shed/compressor/dive area. I want to paint behind it since when we convert to solar the dive compressor will be converted to an LPG powered engine and the conduit will disappear. I probably should prune the bottom of the crotons to make painting easier. And then there is the marquesina. Hmmm...when do the rains start? Why didn't I start all this sooner? It has been endless sun here for months but I know it will end and I want it all done mas rapido, not poco y poco! Yes I am impatient, but right now my hands are so sore I cannot lift a brush...

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Katrina,

I feel for you! I painted once the whole exterior of the house including the rejas. It was a summer project and I earned some money for it, but it was a lot of work for sure. Keep in mind the final product. BTW, I like the mango color also!

Ham

Anonymous said...

BTW, I commend you on your goal of getting off the grid. We have plans to drastically reduce our electricity dependence. First thing will be to go "geothermal" for our HVAC needs. The HVAC needs to be replaced and I like the idea of reducing our electricity bill for starts! Have not done the numbers yet to see when do we get to recover the initial higher investment.

Ham

Minerva said...

The mango color looks much better than I was afraid it would. Congrats!

Anonymous said...

Good choice on the colors. It's very impressive to see all the hard work you have put into your home and yard. Nice job! Jim

Anonymous said...

Love your tropical colored casa! Glad to hear you are planning for solar. It seems to be the most popular of the grid alternatives. I have had no luck investigating the possibility of a geothermal system in PR. I know they're pricey, but even so, no one in PR knows anything about them?? I guess they're most cost effective in areas where you need both heat and AC. Even so, I don't get it, since it could be used for AC year round. Fran

Anonymous said...

Love the mango color!