Exterior paint and associated good news

It was a full house at Chez Malaise today. Brett's cousin picked up his folks on her way to Kansas City and brought everything for a fun family lunch. Both her daughters (who live in town, one just blocks away) and one of their husbands joined us for house touring and KU Football. The touring and discussing plans was fun, the football, not so much.

I started the day early with a trip to the laundromat, or as my mother says, the wash-a-teria. Our washing machine is in and working (with one hose to change), but the dryer is sitting sadly with no place to plug in until the electrician comes this week. (who has gas dryers anymore?!) I did a load the other night and used the clothesline we found strung in the basement. Rather than the "fresh from the sun and wind" I remember from my grandmother's outside clothesline, I got stiff and crinkly and unwearable. Laundromat technology has certainly advanced since my college days. They have a five-loader washer at $8.75 a pop. Of course I had whites, colors, and sheets/towels so I had to split among three.

During the festivities here the first paint contractor came by to bid our outside painting. We thought we'd wait until spring for that, but frankly the exterior of the house is in such bad shape that it's kind of a bummer every time we come home. The company was recommended by a friend in the guttering business, and once again, technology has come a long way.

He walked around the entire house with us, asking questions and plugging information into his laptop. With all the information on what we wanted, and all the estimates on what we needed, he had a full and extremely detailed quote, with options on a few things we'd discussed, in about 30 minutes.

The good news is that there is far less wood rot than we expected. He found two places where they'll have to replace boards, but that was it. His guess is that the house has not suffered from neglect it's entire life, but rather just for probably the last 20 years. Basically he says it looks worse than it really is.

We'll probably get another bid or two as a number of people have recommended painters, but I have to say, I like this company. I had a lone man paint my first house in Brookside, and while he did a good job, it took just over six months. He'd disappear, reappear, paint some more and then he was gone. Even the best lone painter is going to take longer, and we're running out of good weather. A large crew can do everything needed here in a week to ten days, and more importantly can start late next week.

So we went out tonight and got paint chips to narrow down candidates to sample on the house. And I'd seen some house numbers I liked so we picked those up as well. More to follow.