We've started. The house that is. We have three different stains, to make life more complicated.
We had 1.75 gallons of stain from 9 years ago. Cabot oil based stain. I started on the end wall; Sandy started at the bottom section of the bedroom wing at the back. By the end of that day, I was mostly finished the end wall, save the two peaky areas with the false shed dormer. Sandy finished all but the bottom 2 or 3 boards, leaving those until she could clean them. That stain was finished.
Rona in Parry Sound only had one gallon of the semi solid neutral base. They mixed that up for us to the Cabot spec for New Redwood. Before starting to stain, reading the directions on the can, we realized that it was different. Oil paint, yes. Water cleanup. Odd. It's linseed oil based and does cleanup with water. I applied that to the 4x4 area on the end wall that wasn't complete and it's oh-so-slightly-different in color and finish, very slightly darker. It's one of those things that only we would notice. I could blend it in a little better perhaps.
Sandy phoned around and found that Lowes in Sudbury had 6 gallons of the base. We're not sure that we're going to need that much but decided to take all of them but only mix up 4 gallons so two could be returned. I headed to Sudbury early on the 1st, showed the girl at the paint counter the Rona formula ... she said that was useless - what's the colour ? New Redwood, says I. Oh, she said, we have that in a factory mix. Duh. So I brought home six gallons. Being a factory mix, we can return unused.
Sandy applied that to a small section at the back and lo and behold, it's different than either of the other two. Great. It's the same formulation as the 2nd base but the colour is different again. It's probably closer to the original colour of the siding, which was factory applied but a water base.
Ugh, ugh, ugh. Well, they're close enough to one another in colour that as long as they're not close enough to one another on the wall, it won't be noticeable. It might be noticeable on bare wood but not over existing stain. The middle, one gallon Rona mix will be used in odd spots - peak areas, wood box etc. The new factory mix will be used going forward.
Speaking of peak areas - I asked Kim for help with the big ladder with adjustable feet and she volunteered to actually do the end wall peak areas, scrambling like a monkey up there. That was a huge help - she earned a latte in spades. We then moved the big ladder to the front so that I could do the few boards at the very peak and then she helped me put it away. We won't need that ladder anymore. Thank goodness. I can't manage it on my own.
So there wasn't a lot of painting done yesterday. There was time later on but it looked like it was going to rain. It didn't. Today it's raining.
Bobbie news. She is undergoing her last bit of radiation treatment and then heading home, palliative care. We don't know how much longer she'll have. Could be 3-6 months, could be a lot less. Tracy is in Canada, finishes up her quarantine on Sunday and will then see Bobbie and Paul for a week before returning to California. Staying at the Abbots now, the Abbot's daughter is bringing groceries. My uncle won't travel from Mexico through Mexico City. Sigh. Heavy heart.
Onward. For a while.
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