High maintenance............

And so another weekend bites the dust. This last one was spent busily putting our house in order for the winter, and battening down the hatches, much in the manner of the three little pigs.

Only without the straw and sticks.

Having already repaired our shed roof the previous weekend, there still remained the job of replacing a pane of glass which blew out in a recent storm. This was successfully accomplished with only the minimum of cussing at the point where, when trying to fit the new pane, one of the others fell out and narrowly avoided smashing to smithereens on the flagstones.

DIY........dontcha just love it?

However the major job, which we had been planning to tackle since the start of this year, was repainting the front of the house, outside the dining room, which is clad in softwood, and so requires high maintenance repainting every so often. As it faces south, and downhill, it takes the brunt of the weather... sun, wind and rain. Not a huge amount of wood to paint, but as with everything DIY, preparation is all.

So, as Saturday was warm and sunny, we reluctantly girded our collective loins and set to, scraping, sanding and mousing all the flaking, peeling paint.

Mousing?

Yes, well, we have a small electric sander in the shape of a mouse. That is, pointed at the front and bigger at the back. Sort of triangular shaped. In the way that a mouse is sort of triangular if you look at if from above. It's supposed to get easily into cracks and crevices and the like. Again, very similar to a mouse.

Small dog perked up her ears at the mention of mousing, and sat attentively waiting in her basket, which we took out front so she could relax in the sun while we were hard at work. She was sadly disappointed when the mousing activity yielded nothing but clouds of dust and lots of noise.

Strangely however, the racket did not deter her from enjoying a lengthy nap soaking up the sun.

So, all the prep, scraping, sanding and filling took about 3 hours. And the first coat of paint took 1 hour. After which we were fit to drop but at least we could see where we'd been, which is always a bonus.

Yesterday (Sunday) was much colder and windier, but nevertheless, the second coat had to go on. Due the drastic drop in temperature, small dog declined to join us outside and stayed in the cosy warmth of her basket indoors, while we, bundled up in jumpers, battled the elements to complete the job, swearing under our breath as gusts of wind deposited tiny specks of dirt over our pristine paintwork.

Still, it's finished, apart from a few bits of touching up, so all in all a job well done.

So hopefully, even the worst of the winter storms won't huff, and puff and blow the paint off the front of the house.