Sunday, January 19, 2014

Cottage by the sea - painting the exterior

In the breaks between the rain I'm repainting the exterior.
First step, remove all the shutters and restore them. I can do that indoors on rainy days. I'll post that separately.

Here are photos of the original state.


View from the south-east, with 27 in the foreground and 27bis at the right, behind
The "courette" on the south side. The tanks are the gas supply.

The north wall of the bis

North and West walls of the bis.
Isn't it lovely? I just love the multi-colored streaks. The garden belongs to the neighbor and the bis abuts it on the property line.

Bis bedroom dormer. I've already begun restoring these windows. The shutters are beyond repair and I've removed the shutters on the left.

House windows, living room below, main bedroom above

Entry door below, small bedroom above

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In the first half of January, over the course of 3 days, using my trusty Karcher pressure washer I got all the dirt and loose paint off the exterior. In some places the paint came off down to the original cement plaster. I used a chlorine based solution first, let it rest for 10-20 minutes, then did the pressure washing. This kills the fungi, mosses and other micro-organisms that typically grow on the surfaces of the houses around here. I used a very dilute, weak solution because I didn't want to flood the surrounding environment with chlorine. But this treatment, along with proper maintenance in the future should keep it from looking as it did before.




Next step, patch a few small holes in the surface and start priming.
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Friday, January 10, 2014

Cottage by the Sea - Restoring the Exterior - Windows

Hi to everybody. This note comes to you from Rancho Escargot. Rancher Tony waving a howdy to y'all.

I thought I'd keep track of the various house restoration projects here on my 1001 Arabian Nights blog. So here goes it.

The main thing on the agenda at the moment is to get the outside cleaned up and restored, so that it looks good for the neighbors. In December I had a fellow come around and he washed the roof with some kind of anti-fungal treatment, to get rid of the various mosses and fungi that are growing on the slate shingles. Over the course of the winter they'll die off and the rain will wash them away, leaving a clean and fresh looking roof.

In the last few weeks I've been working on the windows of the cottage, stripping off all the old paint and removing the old putty, then repainting and puttying. I'm part way through that. The windows are made of some very hard, solid, straight grained wood. I think perhaps it's larch. Anyhow, they're in excellent shape. There isn't a sign of rot anywhere in the wood. I'll be repainting the outside white but may strip the inside to bare wood and varnish them if the grain looks good.

Here are some before photos of the cottage bedroom, BEFORE.





IN PROGRESS, old putty removed and new putty going in.