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Archive for September 9th, 2022

Annex 81

Posted in Diary, tagged on September 9, 2022| Leave a Comment »

Of all construction tasks, I hate painting the most.  It’s messy, it’s expensive, I’m not good at it, and it takes a lot more patience that I have to do it properly.  I even hate it more than I hate working on rooves, which is saying something because, as you know if you’ve been following this saga, I really hate working on rooves.  So you can probably imagine that painting rooves is just about the peak of odious tasks for me.  But the steel rafters and purlins had to be protected from rust, and nobody thought of painting the damned things before they were used for construction, so that meant painting them in place.  After thinking about it for a while I decided to use spray paint for most of the job; though it’s more expensive in the long run, it was easier to do from the tops of ladders, especially for the steel over the hot tub where there’s no easy way to place a ladder.  The spray paint was also quicker and allowed me to get some hard-to-reach parts from a short distance away; since most of the area will be decorated with hanging fabric, the paint job didn’t need to be more than a primary coat to protect the steel and reduce the color contrast.  The only exception is the bathroom area (to the right of the picture), so I had to use regular paint in that part (and it’ll require another coat later); there are also a few parts that will be painted a copper color because they’ll remain visible (such as the post and crossbar at the center of this shot).  It took 12 cans of spray paint to do the area shown here plus most of the apex beam; another 6 cans took care of most of the east end.  There’s still a little to do, about 3 more cans I think, but I’m putting it off until next week or so, because did I tell you I hate painting?  Even with a protective mask I manage to inhale the stuff, and I got so much overspray around my eyes Grace said I looked like a photographic negative of a panda.  I had to scrub my skin red to get it all off, and I was still finding little spots in strange places, including some I know were covered by clothes, for over a week.

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