Ups & Downs of Home Ownership

So today the winds have finally died down and I planned to use my new paint sprayer and move one step closer to finishing my house painting. I first read all the user guides as this was the first time I was ever using a paint sprayer and I wanted to make sure I as doing it correctly. It all seemed simple enough so I did as directed and filled up the cup with paint and headed out to the garage. I decided to start with the back of the garage just in case this didn't go so well and I'm very thankful that I did.

As I was spraying the paint, it came out in like specks. Some places it was super thick and some it didn't cover at all. I figured I'll just have to do several passes to cover everything. But after several passes it looked like I was texturing the wall. I actually had to take a paint roller and go over the entire thing to smooth it out, and remove the excess paint. As I'm doing this I'm thinking to myself that this was a waste of time. I'm now doing double the work to get this painted and I fill like I waste a ton of paint.

About thirty minutes into the job the paint sprayer got clogged and that was the end of my painting day. It took me about an hour or so to pull everything apart and clean it out. I spent more time cleaning the sprayer then actually using it to paint. It could be that I got a "cheap" sprayer (it was $100), as there were a range of prices from $69 to $350. But this experience didn't turn out like I was hoping and so I'm going to go back to just hand painting my house, which of course means it's going to take me even longer :(

But even though the painting was a disaster I did manage to fix my irrigation system and it cost me very little money. I had called the company who installed it and the customer service person told me what she thought the problem was but after I got off the phone I checked what she had mentioned and it looked fine so I dug deeper into the website and read a bit more and then went out to the device and played around with it. I found this secret compartment that contained a 9 volt battery so I replaced it and viola it's working again. Months ago when it stopped working I figured it was just the battery but when I checked the device it had a power source and plugged into the wall so I figured that's where it was getting it's power but for some reason they battery was an intricate part of the system.

I was mad at myself for not deviling deeper into the problem months ago.. could have saved myself 3 months of watering my property by hand everyday. But I'm just happy that's one problem that I don't have to deal with again.

I also filled in a hole on the top of my roof. I noticed it a few weeks ago when I was up there painting. It looks like a bird (assuming my menacing wood pecker) made a hole right through the roof shingle. So I purchased a patching kit and some cocking asphalt to fill it up. This was probably the easiest of the house problem to fix. Took me about ten minutes and it was sealed and good to go.

I have set my goal for getting my house up on the market. I don't care if it's completely done or not it's going up come November 1st. I hope to at least have the outside of the house painting done. The deck and the minor inside stuff I can do in time but I need to sell this house ASAP.