same as yesterday, woke up at 8:30am, left sometime after 9am, started working at 9:30am. only things different was i didn't bother making any coffee and i rode the bike instead because 1) i wanted to take a photo of this beautiful japanese maple tree on linnaean street, and 2) i didn't want to give up my parking spot.
today was 10 degrees cooler than yesterday, though not as windy. i took off my jacket because i didn't want to get paint on it but kept my hat on. working in the 50's was okay at first but eventually i felt really cold being in the shadows the whole time.
today i was applying the final coats on the door and touching up any bare spots on the porch. i was hoping it wouldn't be a full day and i could go home early, maybe even go to belmont to mow the leaves from the lawn.
i cracked open the quart of door paint in a color called "stunning" which looked like a dark slate color. when my sister first told me what color she wanted her doors painted, i told her it was the wrong choice. unfortunately she had already bought the paint months ago and it couldn't be returned.
because of the white primer base, it would take at least two coats of final paint to hide the white underlayer. the first coat looked especially bad. but in the time it took me to paint one door (to my sister's place), i went back to do some touchups and this quick second coat looked much better, less visible brush strokes, nearly hidden white primer. i should've taped up part of the door as the dark color bled onto the other side of the door which was entirely white. i also made a few mistakes and accidentally touched the door frame, leaving splotches of dark paint that can't be wiped off and can only be repainted over with white.
i then painted the second door (to the upstairs apartment). this one seemed easier to paint, but only because it swung inside the apartment where it was darker and more forgiving to bare spots. i did put down some tape onto this door, so maybe that made it easier to paint. once that was done, i went back to my sister's door to officially put down a 2nd final layer. with that done, i switched again, to the other door to put down a 2nd final layer as well.
2 coats wasn't enough and i had to do a 3rd coat to completely hide the bottom layer and for a uniform coverage. i probably even did a 4th coat if you count the times i went back afterwards to touchup any spots i might've missed, or any places where i could still see the brushstrokes.
the doors were finally finished by 2:30pm. after cleaning the brush, i took another brush and started painting the porch. even after a quick 2nd coat, there are spots where you can still see the bottom layer through the brushstrokes. by that point i only had a little but of the final paint left, not enough to attempt a 3rd coat.
by then it was after 3:30pm, with just another hour left of daylight. my sister helped me to clean up, removing blue tape and some old tape marks (not my doing) on the vinyl siding. i rolled up the plastic tarp and threw it away. the final result looked surprisingly good, the blue doors sort of grew on me, which may be due in some part to how much work i put into it. coating the primer coat and the 4th final touchup coat, i painted each door 5 times for a total of 10 times when you count both doors. and i hate painting doors!
now the only problem is the threshold, which is still unpainted and looks terrible juxtaposed with the newly painted doors and porch. my sister originally wanted me to strip it down to bare wood and then stain it. the amount of work for that would be days, and might involve heat gun and paint dust getting inside the house. and that all depends on the weather, of which we don't have many more warm days if any. i told her it might just be easier to give it a light sanding then paint over the threshold with a dark paint. if we get some workable weather next week, i might do that.
i finally returned home by 4:20pm. riding the bike, there was no rush to get home in order to find a parking spot. sara texted me earlier, said a bike luggage crate was arriving today, and asked if i could either bring it inside the house or put it in the basement. outside the house was a large box. i was worried it'd be heavy but it was actually pretty light and i was able to put it in the basement.
my street was actually sectioned off because the somerville road crew were repaving a long stretch of beacon street today. out of curiosity i went out to take a look and they were still working, not sure if they'll be finished by tonight as the sun began to set.
i took a box of curry rice noodles from the cafe for an early dinner since once again i didn't have breakfast or lunch. later in the evening, around 8pm, i had some instant noodles. tempura will have to wait again. i ate my noodles while watching thursday night football between the panthers and the steelers.