boards boards boards

Number 2 on our humungous ramshackle farmhouse to-do list was to replace the horrid splitting-and-falling-apart-paint-falling-off-it lattice which was on the house acting as barge boards (or base boards, whatever you like to call them) with painted treated timber. Mr M ripped off the horrid said lattice pretty much as soon as we could fight our way through the thigh-high grass to actually get to it. Observe...

Yeah it pretty much splintered with one little tug, such was the state of it all. It did reveal a whole new jungle though, this time beneath our house. So Mr M with his trusty spray gun attempted to kill most of the ivy growing under there before I ripped it all out. Again with the creepy horror movie like tendrils.

Then we ordered some timber to replace the lattice, we picked it up back in December and it lay on our lawn for awhile. Then we thought we better do something about it, so brought it into the shed sometime around January/February. We laid all the boards out nice and neatly, brushed them off and gave them a few licks of paint over the following few weekends, bringing us up to about the March/April period.

 

Seems easier enough to type and blog about now but it was a loooong process I can assure you. The even more drawn out process was just how long they sat like that. In the shed. For months. The main thing holding us back was that some plumbing work had to be done with the laundry so we thought we'd leave the boards off for ease of access. Also we weren't sure if the painter would find it more convenient to paint the boards on or off the house, that is when we eventually got around to painting the house.

Last week the plumber finished what he had to do in the laundry (re-direct the grey water from our washing like our bathroom and kitchen grey water), which meant we could start putting the boards back on. And as you know from this post and if you follow me on facebook and twitter, the house is being prepped this week to be painted finally. We spoke to our trusty painter Freddy who said boards on the house to paint would be fine. So on they went.

The eastern wall of the house - the dining room and lounge room windows.

The western wall of the house - my sewing room, the study and the bathroom windows.

Now the house looks a little freakishly unfinished (did it ever not?!) but we're getting there. We're getting there.

Images by Emma Durkin for Cinderella for Brindabella