Work on the house is progressing

I took Thursday and Friday off to work on the house. The routine was not much different then before spent the first three mornings painting the basement walls and now can cross this off my list. I still have 2/3 of the north basement wall to paint but that will have to waiting until I repair and paint the floor along the walls I just finished.

The unfinish wall section in the basement.

When the floor is done I brought heavy duty shelving to put up along the east wall. I have a finished sewing & craft room on the west side of the basement which is filled with all the boxes that belong on those shelves. I cannot even get to my sewing machines to do mending let alone make curtains for the living room.

Thursday afternoon I finished sanding the deck and brought a deck cleaner to clean and brighten the wood up for staining. It looks great. Now I need at three days with out rain so I can start staining it.

Friday and Saturday afternoons I started remove all the paint from the 2nd wall elevation in back of the house. My goal each summer is to remove all the paint off, fix and weatherize all windows, prime it, then caulk and finish it with the final paint coats. Since I am the only person doing all the work at my house I am very happy to be able to getting finish one small wall each of the last two summers and hope to finish this third one now. I got a good start last weekend. I plan to take two or three day off this week since the temperatures around here will be in the mid 70’s and make it must easier to wear a facemask, ear muffles, face shield, leather gloves, long sleeve t-shirt and pant. I wear all that when using a heat gun since I have in the past accidently burned myself with it.

Here is another safety tip if using a heat gun to remove the paint from your house. Make sure the gun is set to low heat when using it. If the gun is set to high and the paint has lead in it, the lead can vaporize.  A dust mask or a dust mask with organic filter will not block lead fumes. Please make sure your heat gun is set to low.  The treatment for lead poisoning is not much fun.  It does not just remove the lead it also removes the trace metals needed for a healthy body.