Advice to my past self about fence painting

First things first: the paint can hack I tried worked so well that I want everyone to know about it:

You can buy pour spouts for regular-sized paint buckets, but a) this is a two-gallon, not a one-gallon bucket, b) I am only sometimes, not always, not pathologically frugal, and c) most importantly, I feel like this probably works better than a rigid pour spout would.

I thought, when I first saw it, that this hack was merely about narrowing the opening the paint poured through, so that it wouldn't spill so badly. And I'm not saying that doesn't help. But if you carefully observe where the tape meets at a point in front of the bucket, you can see it forms a weird almost-triangle for the paint to pour over. If you lay that tape-triangle across whatever you're pouring the paint in to, the paint flows right across it and you can even wipe it off with a brush if you want and it works so well that it's fun and makes you wish that the entire job consisted of paint-pouring.

So. Now you know about the exactly one part of the fence-painting process that has gone smoothly.

I'm not even going to try to tell you what I did in order, because it was such a disorganized mess that I can't remember. What I can give a little more coherent an account of is what I should have done. 

Part of the problem is that my problem is so unusual: after all, who paints a half-rotted fence in high-gloss paint, waits five (or more-- not even sure) years, and then repaints it? I mean, me, obviously, at least for the repainting part, but while I would normally try to do some research into the best way to attack house-repair problems, this one was so weird that I didn't feel like that was a viable option. 

(I keep wondering if it's even worth it, since I'm pretty sure that the fence is going to need to be entirely rebuilt in 5-10 years, but I WAY don't have it in me to rebuild it this year, and the paint color, barn orange, does stand out for weirdness/ugliness in the neighborhood.)

But, as I said, this is what I should have done. First, remember that you don't want to paint anything that is too rotted, so figure out some sort of scraping system that pulls off the most egregious stuff before you start. This maybe should have been obvious to me, but you will want to remove the largest debris first, and then work your way down to the smaller stuff. Here are some tools that will be helpful:

A Phillips-head screwdriver; a wire brush (which are evidently a terrible idea to use on grills, but since you aren't planning on cooking anything on this fence, let alone eating anything that has been cooked on it, you're good to go); and a plastic scrub brush you originally bought because the level of pollen on your front mat was deep and concerning, and you hadn't figured out yet that this is why power washers were invented (and borrowable from the library). 

Use the screwdriver to scrape away the vines that the last painting crew didn't bother to take care of, which are now rotting under the paint. Then, take that wire brush and scrape off what was left by the screwdriver. The plastic brush takes care of even smaller debris, and then after that it's time to power wash. 

Which, it turns out, is VERY fun. I have a friend who works for the Foreign Service, and before she went to one assignment in a high-conflict area, her training included learning how to use a machine gun. She said it was by far the most fun she had ever, ever had at a work training. I thought about her as I felt the kickback from the power washer and noticed that, while it's tiring, power washing is indeed also quite fun.

I have no current plans to get a job that requires me to learn how to use a machine gun, but I did what I could to live up using the power washer while I had it.

BTW, past self, please do yourself a favor, suck it up, and commit to moving the ladder around so that you can power wash the fence from the top down (instead of the side, as you keep trying to do), because that will be much more effective.

Also, don't even bother with the power sander. This high-gloss-paint-on-weathered-wood situation means that the power sander can't really reach most of the paint. You will eventually notice, in fact, that the sander is called a "finishing sander," and the painting situation you are in calls for beginning sanding if there ever was such a thing. 

Fine-grit sandpaper is maybe 200-400 grit. Medium sandpaper is 100-150 grit. Coarse is 60 grit. You will briefly consider driving an extra 20 miles to get 36-grit sandpaper, but listen to me, you could skip all that and go straight to buying the not-to-be-used-on-a-grill metal bristle brush. After you've used it to get the debris off, as I described above, you can use it to rough up the entire high-gloss surface of each board in preparation for priming it.

And, as is so often the case, I'm too tired to write any more tonight! Next week-- er, in two weeks-- I'll see how much further I can get in the Saga Of The Not Yet Painted Fence.

Happiness in Sewing, and also Happiness in Happiness

The wedding dress came out lovely. My apologies-- I don't have a picture of the whole finished thing, let alone of the bride in it, but here is a random process picture: 

One of the nicest compliments I've ever gotten on my sewing happened when the bride's mother, who has more experience than I do, sewed right over my basting stitches on the shoulders which I had modified. (I'd left the basting in rather than doing the final sewing myself just in case she wanted to fix anything I had done.) After that, she told me that the front of the hem looked just right, and since I had pinned-then-basted it three different times at that point, I felt both gratified and justified. I told her I will be eating those compliments for a year, which is true.

I told my friend, the bride, that I had thought about trying to finish up a blue dress I had been working on in time to wear it to the wedding, but because her colors were blue and white, I had decided not to. She told me that to the contrary, she would be thrilled if she looked out at the congregation and saw a sea of blue. 

So, I spent the next day doing my own sewing-over-basting, and I wore the dress to the wedding on Friday night, and then again to church the following Sunday. I felt SO pretty. I'm pretty sure that at this was at least partly due to the "growing your own vegetables" effect-- kids (and grownups) who are involved in gardening often love to gulp down produce they've had a hand in growing. But I don't think it was all that. It's a good color on me, anyway, and it doesn't look home made, which is a win.

At the wedding itself, the most curious thing happened. As the couple met at the front of the room and the ceremony started, I found myself unable to stop grinning. This also happened at the last wedding I went to, a year ago March, and it surprised me then, too.

Because, true confession time, I wasn't this happy at any of my siblings' weddings, nor at my friends' weddings, even a decade ago. This is new for me, and it's lovely, and I wish I had found it earlier, but better late than never, no? I'm so grateful that "years ago" (to quote my father) I was paying attention in a church meeting where a leader encouraged us to learn to be happy for others. At the time I thought this was slightly odd advice, but I've tried to take it, and maybe it hadn't sunk in ten years ago, but maybe it has now.

I remember years ago (there's that phrase again!) a friend quoting her religion professor saying that after you are married, there are only team points. I fully believed that then, and I fully believe it now. But the thing that I've been realizing, as I've pondered how delighted I am to have found my "happiness for others" mojo, is that I'm pretty sure that all points are team points. We're humans; we're children of God. That's the team I'm on, and that I want to be on. 

(But, me being a mortal, fallible human, it sure does help to feel like I have some wins, too, even if they are smallish and have to do with sewing and professional life-- more on that later.)