Paintin' the Porch!

The poor cottage has been neglected this summer. Sure we went up a couple times to clean the inside of the place but what really needed attention was the porch. When the porch was re-done, whoever that was hired to paint it used the wrong paint. As a result the paint faded and exposed the wood to the elements.

So today we decided to finally fix the porch by renting a massive sander and re-painting it. The sander was pretty ridiculous...it shook the whole cottage! Kind of wish i owned one...could be a fun ride. Your hands go numb after awhile of using it.
The sanding went pretty quickly. The only problem with the sander is that it can't get the edges of the porch due to its size. My dad had thought ahead and brought an old hand sander that use to belong to Grandpa. Of course, when we plugged it in it wasn't working and we had to do the rest by hand. But even that wasn't too bad, a little sweat and elbow grease never hurt anyone.
After the sanding was done i swept away the dust that had collected on the porch and it was time for paint! i always get a little nervous when painting because i'm a horrible painter. It all started in kindergarten. We were using our fingers and brushes. i forgot what i painted by the teacher pretty much said it was crap. She then walked me over to another classmates painting....and pointed out how much better it was than mine. It was an ocean scene consisting of a person (in red) swimming to the left. If you ask me it was shit. There was no marine life...no clouds...there might have been a sun but i couldn't believe the teacher actually thought this was better than my master piece. So that's probaby why i never got into painting..because my teacher said i was worthless in kindergarten...

i was left to paint the porch by myself since my dad had an eye appointment to go to. My mom decided to help after getting something to eat but after she did the areas outside of the railings i told her i would do the rest because her paint skills make me nervous.

After about getting 4/5 of the porch done my dad had come back from his appointment and i handed him the paint brush to do the rest.
Personally i think the color is kind of ugly but its still an improvement from before and maybe it will lighten up a bit after 12 hours of drying time.
While i was painting my mom went to town on the vines in that had taken over the walk way to the porch. i despise those vines. i wish they would just die. But no, they survive every winter and overflow their flowerbeds creating a woven mat of green leaves. Next i'm up i'm bringing the weed whacker and going to town on them. See how they like them apples.