After the framers finally finished installing the siding, prep work and painting commenced. Mark took a week’s vacation and we hoped to have the house painted and the deck finished in that time. What do they say about best laid plans?

The framers’ scaffolding looks like something from Dr. Seuss’ imagination to me.

We’ve had two years to choose colors. These aren’t safe picks and I’m sure they’ll leave some folks shaking their heads, but we’re quite happy with them.

Day One: Mother-in-law filling nail holes (ignore the pond below her…it’s due for a serious cleaning, but that won’t happen until we wrap up construction).

Mark working a caulk gun in wingtips, natch.

The menfolk filling nail holes.

Jordan, the neighbor’s free-range dog, greeted us most mornings. On this particular day I received a surprise inspection and a dressing down thanks to the amount of caulk on my clothes.

Caulking done, nail holes filled, priming started.

In this picture you’ll see a lone roofer replacing flashing damaged by the framers. I bet he has some choice words for the framing crew, too. Maybe we should start a support group.

We had exceptionally lovely weather. Cool-ish mornings and overcast afternoons are a painter’s friend.

Mini Babybel cheese is also a messy painter’s friend (Jordan would not approve of the state of those hands).

For awhile it looked like a ghost house – at times blending seamlessly with the clouds.

Then came some color.

We all started doubting the brilliant vision of contrasting colors right about this point…

I wanted to show Jordan that I might make a mess of myself, but I keep a tidy working environment – but she claimed she couldn’t climb a ladder so my work went unchecked by her.

Yes, we should’ve tinted the primer a darker color. No, it wasn’t the end of the world. The bigger problem was the flat white roofs bouncing light onto the dark gray walls. It made it almost impossible to tell what was white primer peeking through and what was roof reflection. As a result, there are four coats of gray on the wall Mark is painting.

Thanks to flat roofs and easy access, painting the front of the house was practically effortless.

Then came the corner.

We ignored it for a while, choosing to paint the balcony side instead.

Notice the ‘racing stripe’ amount of paint on that back wall? That’s as far as I could reach while still clutching the doorway. It’s a good thing other people on this team are considerably braver than I am. Speaking of brave, you can see Mark and his dad assembling scaffolding on the half-finished deck.

It worked! The corner is covered! Not pictured: Mark’s dad dangling Cirque du Soleil-style off a ladder atop the scaffolding to get the very corner of the roof trim. I had to avert my eyes for that part (even though he assured me the pond would make a soft landing if he fell…).

At this point, Mark’s vacation was over and he had pressing matters at work which required his attention so his parents and I wrapped up the backside. His dad painted 90% of this part of the house because of that pesky fear of heights thing. Our scaffolding, while much more sound than the matchsticks used by the framers, was still a bit wobbly for my tastes.

Mark’s mom and I were on-hand to assist, and we became expert scaffold movers (check out that ‘runway’ we built!), but black-eyed peas from their garden needed our attention too so we shelled peas while tossing out encouraging comments to the person doing the real work.

Day Twelve: These are the final shots of father-in-law finishing up. This is how he spent his birthday. As he climbed off the scaffolding, he said “Now that’s a birthday present.”

It’s interesting how different people see the color of the siding. For example, sister-in-law believes it’s navy blue, mother-in-law thinks it’s black, and in certain light Mark and I see it as a deep chocolate (like 90% cocoa dark chocolate), but it’s really dark gray.

The masons were scheduled to start laying bricks Monday, but rain foiled those plans. On the upside, the crew installed the insulation and we passed inspection so sheetrock goes up this week! It’s starting to become a real house.