Wednesday, August 18, 2010

The rail's in, the paint's done, off to Erin's place...

It rained most of the weekend at Deepcreek, so was a good time to to work on the place without feeling guilty for not spinning up the boat. Cherie took on painting the guest bathroom, and I tackled the iron pickets and railing. We spent most of the day Saturday getting paint and running errands and Sunday was wall to wall work.

The interesting thing about the place is that none of the measurements are the same anywhere. The distance between the support 4x4 were 36, 37, 38, and 42 inches wide. I swear the builders were drinking Iron City throughout the job! But it was my job to make it work. Everything went as plan and the install was fairly easy until the very end.

I decided to use two different types of end shoes for the pickets - a plastic shoe for the top of the picket and an iron shoe for the floor. Good idea because the plastic shoe is much lighter than the iron shoe and is a little less likely to give over time. Now the issue... the anchor screw in each of the shoes has an odd "star" opening - but I had my star bits so I was still in business - but over 50% of them were totally welded in on the iron ones and painted in on the plastic shoes. SO trying to tighten them only stripped them. Since they were already on the picket, and the pickets were already epoxy'd in, it's not like I can return them or anything, so I decided to epoxy them on. They are permanent now - but since the pickets are also epoxy'd in, I guess it's no different epoxying the shoes too. Here's a couple of pics of how things turned out...





... the next time we are up there I'll stain and poly them to match the floor.

Cherie, on the other hand, did a great job on the guest bedroom - it looks fantastic! We used Walmart (yes, Walmart) paint. Their "brand" is Kilz, and it's actually a very good paint at a very affordable price. I like it better than Home Depot's Behr which spreads like Elmers glue and is tons cheaper than Lowes Valspar - which is my second fav brand. Kilz is alot like Dutch Boy in how it covers and it probably is the best for the money.

Now that we've finished the painting, just about done with the railings, and waiting for the remaining kitchen pieces to arrive, we're off to the College Park condo this weekend to get it ready for the comming school year.

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