sleepy painting

yesterday I got up before 4 in the morning to get to work at 5am. it was my big unanounced check on my employee day. I was secretly hoping that there would be several people late, no show, etc.. but everyone that was suppose to start at 5 was there and working. amazing. out of my 19 employees that start between 5 and 9. there were only two that were a few minutes late. of course they had the usual excuses and said they'd make up their time.

let me give you guys a little clue. I know alot of people don't believe in kissing the bosses butt and I have always been one of those people.. UNTIL I became a boss. the kisses are kind of nice, for a while, but after only a few days, you know what I like better? brevity. i'm not sure if I spelled that right, or if its even a word, but somewhere way down in my sub conscience (now I know thAT one has a spelling problem) that was what popped up. I am now a big appreciator of someone that can come to me with something in clear, and short terms tell me what their problem is and then LEAVE. alot of people think that when they stick around to chit-chat they are following doing a little kissing of the hinny, but in fact they are not.

phew.. with that out of the way...

since I started at 5 in the morning, I was home before 3. what a nice change! what to do with my new found afternoon?! paint the shed of course. a few weeks ago a spanish guy nocked on the door and said he noticed my shed wasn't painted. I declined his offer and told him i'd get to it later this summer. he gave me an annoyed look and then explained he was a contractor and had 5 gals of paint that was a pretty good match to my house if I wanted it. I sheapeshly agreed (why I thought he was offering to paint it i'm not sure.. it was just what I assumed). when he brought it over I tried to pay him for it but he declined. he lives a few houses down.

so... I painted 3 sides. to do the 4'th I'll have to take the fence down, paint and then put the fence back up. the paint is a good match, and with the 5 gals I may be able to touch up some of the house.

I got some paint stirrers for the drill. one is for a 1gal can, and the other a 5gal can. the smaller cost 2.99 and the other 3.99 at lowes. full metal, good quality. I was able to mix the thing without getting paint all over the inside of the garage (and new motorcycle) so that was a plus. I tried to purchase a cheap 4" brush, but they were out, so I was forced to get a 7$ brush. I painted about 128 sqft with an old crappy 2.5" brush. that went pretty good. then the brush started to gum up so I busted out the new 7$ beuty. WHAT A DIFFERENCE. everyone always says pay your good money in trim brushes but for me and my painting skill the 7$ brush was WELL WORTH IT. I could go almost twice as fast (not just because the brush was about twice was wide) but because with the higher quality bristles I actually had to make less strokes to get the paint into weird areas of the textured siding.

woulnd't you konw it.. this morning it was raining. I think the paint was sufficiently setup before it started raining but i'll look closer tonight.

I used alot less paint than I thought I would. maybe 1.5 qts for almost 300 sq feet. i'll have to look at the container I was using but that seemed pretty good to me. jen promptly said that I needed another coat so maybe my eyes and method arn't as good as I thought they were.