Been doing the painting off and on for the last month now. Its a bit slow work though. Doing half of one wall (above the white stripe) takes at least three hours for one wall. Second coat is a bit quicker though, but it still takes a long time going up and down the ladder. Good news is that the back wall green paint is done now, the white trim still has to be done for part of it, although one side and the back porch is finished. The front wall has one coat of green as well.

The white trim takes a very long time, what with having to paint along the green parts. There isn’t much point masking off the edges with tape since it is so rough (and the weatherboards leave gaps) that the tape would never cover it properly. So it all has to be hand done. Same where the green wall meets the white under the eaves.

Once the front and back walls are done the ends are next. Unfortunately our ladder (which someone kindly left for us — don’t know who) isn’t tall enough to reach the highest point. We need one that extends to about 5 metres. That will be another 120 EUR by the looks of it.

Enough about painting anyway. Also in the last month our roof safety system has been installed. It is a ladder, steps, and walkway that allows access to the roof and chimney. Also our snow barriers are also in place now. They should stop the snow sliding off the roof and falling in front of the entrances to the front and back. Next is the rain guttering. There are a few problems with that the moment, but the installer would like to do it quite soon, so hopefully that is in the next week.

In other news we had to get our septic tank emptied for the first time too. By luck we managed to notice before it overflowed too :-). I was a bit worried about the bill (I had visions of 100’s of Euros), but actually it turned out to be just 100 EUR in total. Big surprise, but pleasant. So it looks as if we can get away with emptying it about 2 – 3 times a year.

Anyway, some pictures. First the new bits and pieces for the roof, snow barrier and ladder, etc. View of the front and back (front when only the bottom half of the wall was painted). And finally, the first of the lupins along our road-side to flower this year.