24th Sept Thur: Painting the garden

Today's review is somewhat special, as it merks the end of a lot of work. For myself, and similar characters, it's easy to continually want perfection in DIY style jobs. A hard lesson I'm still not yet done learning is that it's far better to get it done and learn from the odd mistake than never finish anything and continually chase round in circles


Having finished the painting, today I will provide some before and after pictures, as much for your own entertainment as mine

Begin..
fight on
Our first stop in the past is tidying up after rendering. Note the wall behind us

If you didn't note, here it is again. Note, fullstop

Mixing one of countless wheelbarrows of render. Back breaking. Me in my special anti-sunburn clothing; I got into it far too late in the day, and suffered the sun's mighty wrath towards humanity

What we started with

Ta da... some time later, a reasonably flat and bright white surface. Through a combination of a brush, masonry roller and the airless spray gun. Unluckily, it was overcast today and so the pictures have a blue tinge to them. I was continually painting with the fear of rain on both days, and it did spit down a touch, but nothing serious enough to make me pack everything away, caked in paint

The wall to the left hasn't been rendered because there'll be trelis over it which, in combination with climbers planted under it, will hide most of the brickwork anyway

Even the old trelis panels got a go through the sprayguns misty red ethereal breath. Compare the new autumn red with the old faded panel further up the garden. 28 UKP of Cuprinol to do them all. The garden now has a Spanish type feel to it. I know some may criticise the bright white choice of paint, but the light it's reflecting round makes a huge difference. And one must also remember, you're seeing the garden bare. Once it's full of deck, gravel and plants climing the walls, there'll be a lot more variation. The white really makes the tree stand out nice rather than being blended in with the old wall. It's not had a good time of things recently, after I pruned a huge amount off it and it then had it's roots humiliated by shovels, but it's a hardy beast and it'll be back to form next year

I laids a tarp out stop dust kicking back onto the finish from the floor, but noticed it looks a lot like a scene from Hostel or SAW afterwards. I especially like the bootprints

Those are beehives in the background for anyone wondering, currently uninhabited

Note only did I not have enough paint or time to do the house section, the builders will be working on the roof over this section soon, so I might try avoiding doing that part until they're done above it. Depending on how long they take to turn up

The two gigantic 15l tins I've been using. There's almost 100UKP worth of paint in them there drums, but worth it for the improvement in light. I am using some trickery of the mind with the paint in that by painting the walls a uniform colour, and a light reflecting one at that, it helps push them away from you in your minds eye view of it. Minds focus on variations, not uniform surfaces. If corners or areas are varying colours, it drags them to attention and makes them appear closer as they're focused on

After so much work, I want a damn fine lawn like the kind in Hollywood movies. No weeds! You can buy these neat selective herbicides just for that. It'll kill things called broadleaf plants, and grass belongs to a different family. By spraying this around, I can anhilate the weeds and not harm the turf that'll be down soon