Essay: Paint Your House!

It’s going to be a rainy week, perfect weather for painting my screen porches.

Three years ago, my house desperately needed a paint job.  It had been ten years since it had last been painted and I started to ask around for prices.

Even though it had been a good decade since I last saw the man who painted my house, I was still smarting from that encounter.  It was the experience that taught me never to pay in full until the job was finished.  Ten years after he started, I was still waiting for the housepainter to come back to finish the job.

All the estimates for painting our house were coming in at the same price as a year at college.  I couldn’t imagine spending that much with a son off to college in five years.

I have painted every room inside my house at least once, so I was no stranger to a brush and ladder.  I wondered… could I paint my own house?

I talked to paint store clerks and neighbors who had painted their own houses and I searched the internet for house painting tips.  Then a hailstorm knocked some more paint off the house.  Our house needed a paint job more than ever and the price was still a year of college.

Fall, 2008: I painted the north side!

When I looked at my house, I couldn’t imagine painting the whole thing myself.  But when I really looked at it, I couldn’t do a worse job than the guy we’d paid several thousands of dollars to paint it before.  The worst that could happen would be that it required another paint job further down the road.

So I decided to paint the back of the house.  It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be.  I figured that I extend my goal and try to finish everything that faced north before the end of summer.  It really looked good.

The next spring, I started in earnest and looked at it as a full time job.  Dad was at work making money, and I was at home, painting, and saving money.  The boys were 14 and 11, old enough to look after their three year old sister.  I came down off the ladder for my union approved breaks and everything on the ground went pretty smoothly.  On rainy days I caught up with laundry and housecleaning.  Before truly cold weather set in, I had most of the outside of the house painted.

I learned to glaze windows and make repairs as I went.  I didn’t paint any windows shut or skimp on paint anywhere.  I was doing a better job than had been done before me. 

I could have worked longer hours and got it painted sooner, but I still had laundry and meals and a family waiting on the ground.  I took last summer off to recover from a snowboarding injury, so I have a few minor details to finish up: interior porches and the garage still need painting.  But the first part I tackled still looks great and I didn’t have to dip into anyone’s college fund to accomplish it.

My point is this:  If I can paint my house, you could paint yours.  All it requires is research, attention to detail, patience, and high quality paint and supplies.  A mantra helps too.  Mine was this, “I’m saving a year’s tuition at college.”  I said it every day.  And I also reminded myself of something my mother-in-law says, “The only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time.”