Long distance painting

[footfootfoot]

I have begun making efforts to finish the addition I began about 12 years ago. At that time I bought all the building materials I would need for the project and they've been sitting in the unsided, tarpaper covered addition.

It's much easier to paint the siding before you put it up and the siding I am putting up is cedar* so it needs to be back primed as well as primed and top coated on the face.

I got one wall done this summer and have three more to go. I will probably be installing the siding in the winter/late fall if I can get it all painted.

The siding comes in bundles of ten boards and the bundles are in lengths from 7' to 20' in one foot increments. I'd already painted all the boards shorter than 20 feet, and now had 104 20 footers to paint.

I realized that was over 2000 feet of siding, almost half a mile! so as I was painting the boards I counted how far I walked, back and forth with each board. first sweeping the spoor off, then rolling back and forth tow or three trips, then putting the board outside to dry on the racks.

Yesterday I walked 4.8 miles and never left my shop or back yard. Today I finish up back priming the last 30 boards and expect to get about a mile and a half in.

Now that the temps are dropping I need to get some heat in my shop - hooking up a propane garage heater, then I can prime the faces and put a top coat on. Then I can start siding. My goal is the get my addition covered and move my basement shop upstairs this winter.

*when I bought the cedar it was on sale for some reason relating to a logger's strike, and it was cheaper than pine, about .50 a linear foot.