Well, it
was a hard-fought project. Took me eight weeks, mostly working a few hours on
the weekend in the morning before it got too hot, and I did miss two weekends
due to rain. All in all, I tallied 39 hours of work, done mostly while
listening to podcasts and slathered up in sun block.
Here are
the before pics:
I learned
from my neighbor that he paid two guys $1,500 three years ago to paint his
fence. Since my corner lot is a somewhat bigger than his, I guesstimated the
current cost to me to have it professionally painted would have been around $2,000.
This on top of buying the three drums of stain as well as the rollers,
paintbrushes, and trays used.
So my 39
hours of labor saved me $2,000. If I was one of those pair of workers mentioned
above, I’d have earned $25.64 an hour for the job. Not bad but not great, but
better to have paid myself in my imagination than to write a check to some
painting company in real life.
Verdict:
Glad I did it, but I ain’t doing it again. Before we sell the house in a couple
of years I’ll touch up the faded areas, but I’ll be doing that in the winter
when it actually gets cool around here.
N.B. I
listened to a lot of true crime podcasts while painting, as well as an hourlong
interview with a JFK assassination author, an hour on why history is false (it
didn’t convince me) and a whole bunch of movie reviews.
N.B. 2. My
favorite “treat” meal after a three-hour painting session was a ham-and-swiss
hero with lettuce, tomato, mayo, washed down with an ice tea, bought from a new
deli that just opened two miles from my house. Ham-and-Swiss on a roll with
lettuce, tomato, and mayo is just about the perfect lunch sandwich ever
created.
N.B. 3. My
“reward” for the job was an “Atlas of the Civil War” magazine. I may have
jumped the gun as I bought it before I finished my work, and now my interest
has moved on, so it is now gathering dust on the shelf. Oh well. The maps are
pretty.
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