Nightmares in Priming and Staining Part 1

As some of you are aware, I had a bad experience with wood siding last month. A little while after purchasing my condo, I found out I have to have any areas of wood siding that have rot replaced by the end of 2011. So I had some people come look at my place and give me their opinions on what was rot, what was not, what needed to be replaced, and what didn't. Surprisingly (well, surprisingly to me anyway, maybe this is normal), not all of them agreed on what did and did not need to be fixed. At this point in time, I could not afford to have everything replaced (one contractor told me I should have the whole thing done), so I decided to do the one section everyone agreed on and one section where I could clearly see rot. The contractor I hired charged $50 and hour and does not like to paint. He told me to save myself some money, I should paint the siding myself. Okay, sure why not. I mean it shouln't be too hard to paint a few pieces of wood, right? I mean I painted a couple of rooms in my house, this wouldn't involve ladders or painters tape or any of that jazz. Famous last words. First of all "a few pieces of wood" turned out to be 34 pieces of wood ranging in length from 8 feet to 16 feet. My parents had said I could paint the wood at their house since they have a garage so if it rained or anything, I had a place to safely keep the wood. So a few weeks ago, I arrived at the 'rents around 11:00am and primed (I discovered hate priming!) until about 4:00 when I left to go get more stain and prime (or is it primer?). The condo association requires a specific kind and color from Sherwin Wiliams so I made myself look somewhat presentable (I was covered in prime) and drove down to SW. They had the prime (primer?), but they only had one gallon left of the stain. However, the salesperson told me the SW at the other end of the city apparently had some so I flew up to the other end of the city as the store was going to be closing at 5 and by this point it was after 4:30, I made it just in time then drove back to the south end of town (where my parents' house is) to continue priming 34 pieces of wood. I did as much as I could outside then moved to the garage so I could use the light of the garage when it got dark out. Including clean up, I was there until after 10:00. Then it was back home to eat (no lunch or dinner for me so far that day so I was hungry, cold, and tired) and try to scrub prime off of me (not so much fun). I was back at my parents at 8:00 the next morning. It is extremely rare that I am up at 8:00 on a Sunday let alone out of my home and at someone else's place that early. Sundays are for sleeping in--at least they used to be...Well, I primed and primed and primed some more and did a little staining and then I ran out of space to put any more wood so I figured I'd call it quits for the day. I called my contractor to tell him that he could not come get the wood the next day like he was hoping to because I still had to stain it all and several more pieces to prime. (I don't know if I'm wicked slow or if he was showing wishful thinking by hoping I'd get it done in two days.) He said he wouldn't be able to come for over a week and that was fine with me as that would mean I could use the following weekend to finish and I could probably do some more painting after work a few days that week. As it was only about 2:00 or 3:00 I figured I'd leave the wood outside to dry and go back around 6/6:30 when it started getting dark and move it into the garage to store it overnight. So I cleaned up and headed home to relax and enjoy spending the last few hours of my weekend not painting--of course I was going to be spending it cleaning so that wasn't completely fun, but whatever. Well, I must have done something bad recently because karma came back to smack me across the face in the form of a phone call from my father who was furious because I'd gotten prime on the driveway and grass. He also wanted his half of the garage back so he'd have a place to put his car so he moved some of my wood. I don't think he realized that the wood was NOT completely dry and you are not supposed to stack wet wood. I'll be the first person to tell you I am a klutz--that may even ben an understatement. It's a miracle I can still do ballet considering how klutzy I am, so while I did not purposely get prime on the driveway or grass I did feel bad about it, but I truly did not do it on purpose. I went back to my parents to try to clean up some of the mess and find a way to store the stacked wood without stacking it, but was only able to find room for a few pieces. Now unless you've been living under a rock for my entire life, you know that I worry way too much about everything. I woke up every single hour that night worrying about this siding. I was convinced the wood was going to be ruined and I was going to have to buy 34 more pieces of wood (well, it probably would have only been 20 as not every piece was stacked). Believe it or not, wood is not cheap. Nor is prime or stain and I would have to buy more of that too. I was more exhausted that Monday than I'd been in a long time. I think the last time I'd slept that badly was during some near all-nighters spent cramming for exams in college and after those I'd at least sleep for a couple of hours and not wake up at least once an hour. I also had nightmares about staining siding that night. In one I was at my parents painting and I spilled it all over the living room and was trying to hide the spill and clean it up before my parents got home. In another one, I was living with people I went to Belize with and I was trying to paint at our new home. And in the third one I was visiting my best friend in the hospital and while I was waiting to see her I was painting the wood in the hospital waiting room and I kept spilling. I kid you not people, I really had these dreams/nightmares. What would the dream book say about that? I looked like hell the next day at work and as with most jobs mine is not one you want to do when you're exhausted. I will say it was a great form of weight loss though because I was so stressed that I could not eat. Actually, now that I think of it, that's kind of strange because sometimes when I'm stressed, I overeat. Weird, anyway...Somehow I made it through the day without falling asleep and even managed to make it through tutoring. Then it was back to the parentals to attempt to prime and paint some more. I was able to stain a few pieces of the unstacked wood. My mother calmed me down and assured me that I would get the wood painted and eventually the project would be done and she was convinced the wood was not completely ruined. Now before you think I'm completely crazy for stressing about this like a madwoman, remember I was exhausted and broke and not in the best state of mind so don't commit me to the men in the white coats yet. Dear ol' Mom also thought we could store some of the wood in the basement so I'd be able to have space to get to the rest of the wood. See I now had half a garage so that was fine to do about 9 pieces of wood at a time (I later got creative and was able to do 18), but once those pieces were done they needed to completely dry before I could stack them any more and move them. When I had the whole garage I could paint on one side and have the painted pieces dry on the other side. Once the prime was on, the painting wasn't so bad, but priming was tricky because the wood just ate it up. Also, because of the type of wood, my contractor told me not to use a roller because the way the wood is a roller would get stuck in it so I completely underestimated how long the project would take because I thought I'd just slap on some prime and be done, little did I know, I'd be working hard to get the prime on and though the windy weather was great for drying it also caused some leaves to blow into the prime so I spent some time picking leaves, grass, etc. off the wood. (I'm pretty sure I missed a few pieces and they will forever be on my siding along with a few pieces of my hair.) I primed and painted until just after dark on Monday. I checked some of the stacked wood and while it was clear I would have to restain it, it didn't look like the wood was useless (thank goodness!). I finally went home to change, eat, etc. and thankfully, managed to get a decent night's sleep. Then it was back to the parents' on Tuesday after a day or working and a meeting to prime and stain some more wood. I did the same thing on Wednesday only by Wednesday a couple of pieces of wood now seemed dry so Mom and I moved them into the basement so I could get to more wood. I'd also found some old paint cans and was able to put a piece of wood on two paint cans (one at each end) under the wood that was currently being painted so I could have 18 pieces of wood going at once again. (one row on benches/sawhorses, and one row under them on paint cans)This also meant I had to lie on the garage floor a few times to paint some of the wood, but it got done. I still don't find any of this funny though someday maybe I will, but I think if you had a video camera and had seen me lying on the floor trying to paint wood or had seen some of the strange positions I sat, stood, squatted in, you would have had a good laugh (those ballet moves came in handy). That Wednesday was also the day I finally finished priming and at last I finally saw a teeny tiny glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel, which you can hear all about in the next blog if you're still reading. :)