Big Summer Project

    Painting the garage was always going to be a big deal. It's a big garage for starters - two cars plus a work space. And then there was the matter of scraping. Painting I can do in my sleep, but not so much scraping. It struck me as a  potentially tedious task, and Pete spoke of it as an endless one. So therein lay the challenge.

    I love to surprise Pete, and the feeling is mutual. The afternoon after I moved in, and while Pete was returning a rental truck, I rode my bike down to the quarry and ordered two tons of river pebbles for the back paths. When the young woman told me they would come within ten minutes, I decided to finish the task of spreading them before Pete got back, and I did. I love that expression on his face when he is taken aback, so I worked for a chance to do it again. And here it was.

If you look carefully you'll see the right panel completed

    My hope  and goal was to finish scraping and painting merely the side of the garage you see here before I started my summer teaching in late June. So last Thursday, when Pete went to play golf at six in the morning, I went out to see how far I could get with the scraping. Well, it went so very fast that I only remembered to take the 'before' picture after I had already finished both scraping and painting that far right panel. And it was only nine in the morning. Pete wouldn't be back until noon. To make an already long story shorter, by the time he returned from golf, half of that side of the garage had been scraped and painted. 

   

Expression accomplished!

 

Pete was so impressed by how quickly it had gone that he decided to join the fun. By Friday afternoon, my June goal was complete. Saturday we scraped the front. Monday I scraped the inside of the screened-in porch.

Tuesday we painted both the front of the garage as well as the inside porch.

Not quite finished - but still ready for a close-up

   And as if the week hasn't been satisfying enough, on one of my walks to the woods I found a more perfect table top than I ever thought imaginable.

   Maybe the summer won't be as overwhelming as we had once thought - though roofing sounds less tedious and endless than it does potentially dangerous. Perhaps it's time for a new mantra!