…I’m totally done. Done staining, done in. Last night was a sleep is optional night, I may have slept for 3 hours, but was awake when it was light and it was cool out, so I donned my painting clothes, dug through old deck stain until I found a gallon and a half of penetrating oil stain, grabbed a couple of brushes, stirred up the stain with the stirring attachment to the power drill, and tackled the coop. Here is a before picture.
The wood was so dry it soaked up a gallon and a quarter of stain. My efforts put me in a rather uncomfortable spot trying to get the peak on the pop door side, it is too high to reach from the ground because of the slope. The step stool was not level, the end with legs pushed down into the ground. That end of the coop sits on several cinder blocks while the other end is only on a thin half block. And the pop door side is the side that has a fencing roof over the pen that doesn’t go all the way to the coop roof, just high enough for us to slip in to open and close the pop door. The sides you see above are the east and south sides and lack any real overhang. When the coop has to be resided in a few years, I hope we can remedy that.
This is after on the west side. To do the coop, I had to hold the gallon can in my right hand while I stained with my left because everytime I set it down, the hens came running over to see what kind of goodies I had in the bucket. My arms are spent. Hopefully, my efforts will give this siding a couple more years before it has to be replaced.
A google search indicates we shouldn’t let the dogs go across the stained porch floor for 24 to 48 hours and Ranger, the Mastiff is still resistent to going through the garage. He goes to the barrier at the porch and just looks at me like why don’t you move it for me. I would be happier if the dogs would learn to use the garage, utility room access and egress regularly, it would keep muddy feet off the front porch and the wood floor in the living room.
Tomorrow we are expecting thunderstorms. If there is any energy left in this body today, the furniture will be swept free of spider webs and dog hair, scrubbed free of bird droppings and ready to carefully carry back on to the porch tomorrow between storms.
I meant to get paint to repaint the old milk can that sits on the front porch and forgot earlier today when we went out for a little while. We also need to get paint to repaint both sides of all the exterior doors, it has been a decade since they were done. That will take a whole day to accomplish and has to be done on a dry day that is cool enough to leave the doors ajar while they dry. It will get done eventually, but before cold weather so the house looks fresh and well maintained for the upcoming autumn weather ahead.
The spider plants are back outside, tomorrow, the rest of the houseplants will join them. The fan is reassembled, the decorative birdhouses hung.
And I climbed the 8 foot ladder to reach up and rehang my terra cotta Sun face that was a gift from my Sis a long time ago.
We bought a new door mat and a matching 4 by 6 foot runner to go from the door mat to the edge of the porch to try to reduce the wear on that high traffic area. It can’t go down until tomorrow evening when it has been 48 hours since staining was done. New mats and furniture will complete the task and the porch will be usable again and the exterior maintenance other than mowing and weeding if it ever really rains again.
Beautiful! Chicken coop looks great as does the house.
Thanks! I am so glad it is done and we can put things back together. It has been a long summer of having to move porch furniture to mow, porch plants and accessories in the house to vacuum. Ranger came and went through the garage twice now with no hesitation. Maybe we can start using that route and save the porch.