Repainting

I can't believe it has been five years since I painted the cabin. Well, since I painted three fourths of the cabin. The west wall--this one--was deemed too awful to paint. The siding was wavy where a year of rain--unheard of in this part of Oklahoma--coincided with a vacant, un-mown lot next door. Anyway, two things happened at the beginning of the week that made me want to paint again: the weatherman announced cool temperatures for the entire week (highs in the eighties and low nineties), and a friend gave me four gallons of paint that were too red for her tastes once she got them home. Paint is expensive.

I decided the time had come for me to finish the cabin. Of course, Turtle had to be involved, especially since the well pump had expired last summer and we were waterless. (That's a long story...but it involves a long string of less than competent people we hired to drill and set up a well, and one very good Samaritan neighbor who helped Turtle put everything right again and restore an abundance of good well-water).

Here's that offensive wall when we started: Only the little white eaves have been painted.

We had to replace about half the siding, and it took a full morning of looking to find a match, but Turtle persevered and was able to replace the worst part of the wavy and deteriorated wall.

 We had to scrape away all the loose paint, then prime all the bare spots and the new siding. Then came the fun part--blue.











The results were so drastic, it gave me an incentive to keep painting. 


 I began to look around the cabin for more touch-up jobs and discovered that I had neglected to finish the south wall as well. Twenty eaves. Yes. It took all morning.

 Wherever I saw a faded or chipped spot, I touched up, knowing, but not really caring, that this would lead to painting the entire wall.

 I kept painting on the cabin, while the guys worked on the well.

 The next day I bought a couple more gallons of blue and white so I could touch up the front.











Somehow...the well took a long time to fix. I ended up re-painting almost all the cabin, before I turned to my original plan, which had been to paint the shed out back. 








It needed a little scraping and a lot of washing. Turtle was through with the big water project, so thankfully, just in time for the celebration of independence, with fireworks in the background, we began to add red to our blue and white paint- speckled work clothes...and hair...and faces.

Sadly neglected, used as storage, the little building deserved something cheery...or cherry as the case may be.

 Roshelle's four-gallon gift was perfect. Thanks.

 What might have been too bright for a house looked amazing on the drab little shed.

Only one building remained: the well house. 











We scraped and primed and primed and primed. In fact I think the paint is what's holding this little shack together.











Unfortunately the red, white and blue week ran out before we could paint it. I'm reserving one more day of this busy summer to finish it as well...what do you think? Mary Ann blue, soaring blue (white really), cherry red like the shed, or imaginary day--a deep blue? I wonder?