today was the last day of painting. sure, there might be touch ups later on, but after today the house is officially painted. it took a long time, 2 years in fact. i was supposed to be painting back in the summer of 2013, before my plans changed and i went off to china for a year. the house was supposed to be painted last year after my parents hired a painter, but it took gary forever doing the prep work, and we even had to help him prime parts of the house in early november, to cover up exposed shingles before the temperature got too cold to paint. starting this year we were waiting for gary to continue his paint work, but even up until early summer he was still a no-show so we decided to finish the job ourselves. i spent most of my summer sanding, which at least gave me something to do since i wasn't working anyway. prep work took a long time, and even after i finished sanding, there was still a lot to do, like caulking and patching. we didn't actually begin painting until early october, but once we started it went by fast, first a prime coat (whatever we didn't cover from last fall), then finally the final coat. work was weather-permitting of course, and whenever there was a forecast of rain, those were my days off.

my father and i assembled the new awning today. later we were strategizing how to attach it to the house despite the roof overhang. we discovered that our original placement of the wood block extenders didn't align with the legs of the awning. the only way to do it is to create wooden blocks with cutouts to allow them to sit between 2 shingles.

just trying to figure that out took so long that we missed our optimal window of painting for the west wall to have full sun (best for filming). we didn't paint until almost 1pm, and by then the shadows of nearby trees were starting to creep across the house.

it was only roller painting, which is the easiest and quickest of paintings. while my father worked high with the ladders and a roller on a stick, i worked low, directly from a paint can with some leftover paint. my father asked me to save a small spot so my mother could have the honor of painting the last part of the house when she came home from work. after we finished the western wall, my father was busy cutting a notched block for the awning brace. i was busy painting the underside of the gutters in front of the house. later i also taped the porch light so we can spray it with black enamel paint.

when my mother came home around 3:30pm, we gave her the honor of painting the last area of the house.

now that i have renewed storage space courtesy of my dual SSD/HD upgrade, i want to reinstall a windows partition. i erased my original partition when i upgraded. i just want to have windows so i can play games! fallout 4 is coming out soon, i want to get in on that action!