A McCleve Project: Painting Day 1

grandma said that when her and grandpa built this house, they knew they would need to paint it someday. here in county island and all around there have always been dirt fields. and even though there aren't as many as when grandma and grandpa moved in, the house over the years has soaked up a lot of dirt and grim. so yesterday morning, everyone met at grandma's for breakfast and then we started working outside.
my dad makes the best french toast out of stale french bread. the key is lots of love (or butter) as he says. we ate the french toast with hash browns, sausage, ham, and oranges.

charlene and addison were so awesome the whole day. i was so greatful. brookie was right when she said it was one of the lord's tender mercies. kyle brought charlene's cradle upstairs so i could hear her and she hardly ever made a peep. addison and caleb kept each other busy until she papa mckay came to get so he could take all the grandkids (they were all in town) to amazing jakes. she had a blast and didn't want to come home.

the first thing we had to do was power wash the whole house. there was trouble getting grandma's power washer to have enough pressure, so someone made a quick run to the store to rent another one.

and even though it might not look like it, power washing is a long, hard job. your arms get tired from holding the out so long, your face is tired from squinting to keep out the water that sprays back at you, and you are soaking wet by the time you are done. we were lucky to have great weather that wasn't hot, it even got cold by late afternoon, but kevin did most of the power washing and it took him all day. by the time he he was done, the wind was whipping around and it was cold.

kenna and jalee scraping the walls flat.

i love this. there's always an uncle on their smart phones or ipads.

there were two spray guns going and that helped to get as much done as we did. ladders and step stools were everywhere. oh and plastic. we had a nightmare trying to get it to stay in place with the winds we were having.

not only did we start painting the house, but we also got the storage area of the backyard on it's way to being weed -free and organized. i grabbed all the grandkids that weren't helping with the house and put them to work cleaning up here. not done yet, but it sure looks better.

we burned all the dry weeds and some of the green ones too. it was a lot of hard work, gathering, throwing away, and shoveling.

kyle was the runner who went on the roof to help paint the eaves and i couldn't watch because i was too afraid for him.

taking off the tape and paper.

the painting mask is just sitting on his head here, but i wish i would've snapped a picture when he had it pulled down over his face. my dad loves ridiculous hats and i think loren said this one was grandpa's.

these next two pictures are what the house looked like at the end of our first day painting. we finished all the pop out color and much of the eaves. still have a ton of work to do, but it looks great so far!

oh, and here is what the house looked like before we did anything.