Monday, April 16, 2012

Painting, Sanding, Painting and More Painting

Now I do love my old little farmhouse, but before you get all 'aww a nice old farmhouse' it's not like one of those at all. It's not one of those lovely big sprawling farmhouses, nor is it an old sandstone one. It's a little weatherboard that has been added on and added on, with verandahs closed in and a toilet put inside. We have gradually over the last 7 years done little jobs to help make it a bit more homely and comfy for us and the four Muddy Kids. The biggest of these jobs has been closing in the bathroom, by taking out the window from when it used to be the outside of the house. The verandah is now my office and the kids rooms are off the office. Really it's a bit of a rabbit warren. But a rabbit warren I do love. EXCEPT for the weatherboards.

While the louvres used to be the bane of my existence and I hated cleaning them and all the dust they'd let in, we have replaced them with proper windows, much to my delight. It is now the weatherboards that are the bane of my existence. With 3 verandahs being closed in to now be part of the house I have LOTS of weatherboards to paint. One verandah I was lucky to get out of painting while I was pregnant with Muddy Organiser. The other two I have not been so lucky. At the moment I am covered in paint splatter, I have paint in my hair and over my work clothes. For you cannot roller weatherboards, they have to be painted by hand. This means a lot of time, to make sure you've covered every part of the weatherboard. They are loooooong walls and my poor Muddy Kids have been a little neglected as I plow through the painting in an effort to get it done before the new carpet goes down.

Muddy Hubby has been able to step in for short periods of time to take some of the kids out and about on the farm while I paint, but for the remainder they have been TV kids, and are getting used to me saying 'Just let me finish this section' before we can eat or get games down. Again, like the bathroom I know it will be worth it, it's been good to keep my arms going while bootcamp is on holidays too!

I do wonder though, who invented weatherboards and why? They gather dust and dirt easily, they are a pain to paint and if they're on the outside of the house require even more painting than my inside ones do. Was it just for looks, did they think 'that's a nice look, we're not going to have to worry about the upkeep' or do they actually serve a purpose?

Where our bathroom window used to be


Where new meets old, looks like the house used to be painted blue

Popping in to see how long til we can have morning tea!


Do you have weatherboards to paint too?
Have you got a rabbit warren of a house or is yours more streamlined?

4 comments:

  1. I've decided, that i'm really fussy. My husband & i never moved, ever, until he joined the Army & i left home to marry him. Our parents still live in our big family homes in Sydney, while we've lived in all sorts of cottages, high set tropical homes, town houses & now a large family home (large if you had 1 or 2 children, NOT 4!!) I have a child sleeping in half my studio, which is technically the formal lounge/ dining area of the house. We have to build a home to really get what we want, starting with 4 children aged possibly 10 to 15 by then (in 2 years time)??!! At least we know what we really need, want & how large our family is, then they'll start leaving, sob. Weatherboards?? I'll go colourbond & gimme a high powered water hose for cleaning, i'm happy. We currently have brick & it just looks unfinished, our 6th Army house. Love Posie

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  2. I'm getting a leave pass from painting at the moment too - woo hoo!
    Perks of pregnancy.

    No weatherboard here, but every time I look at our corrugated garden fencing (the entire way around the whole block) I marvel at how I kept going on that job - and three damn times over!!!

    Good luck - I bet it looks terrific, though.
    :-) xx

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  3. Oh geez Nat, you're a tougher woman than I... that job sounds quite horrible actually. I think I'd be getting someone in to paint it for me, though I do know being such a big job, it might be costly. I don't get weatherboard either. I've always gravitated to the thinking of the third little pig... give me a house made of bricks any day! Hope you're all finished soon and you can have a nice scrub in your new bathroom xoxo

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  4. Nope no weatherboard here, brick all round, but our last place had that horrible fibro sheeting that was just a pain to paint and took double the amount...it will look great when it's finished though.x

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