West Virginia Day 4 – In Which we Learned Something the Hands On Way

This post may include affiliate links, which means I may make a commission on purchases made through these links at no additional cost to you. 

I prefer not to say I learned something “the hard way.” I believe calling it “the hands on way” is much nicer and more accurate. What I learned on our fourth day in West Virginia is that sometimes instructions are written they way they are for a very good reason.

In addition to patching up the back porch roof, we also wanted to paint fibered aluminum on the side porch to help seal and protect a previous roof patch, as well as make things look nicer. The fibered aluminum paint said to stir very vigorously using an electric drill. I didn’t feel like finding something to use with a drill and didn’t want to risk getting roofing paint on the neighbor’s tool, so I shook and rolled the can around. About half way across the roof, I realized the instructions absolutely weren’t exaggerating – the paint needed far more vigorous stirring than I’d given it! The fibered aluminum was settled so thickly it was basically a paste, and I’d just painted most of the more liquid part onto the first half of the roof! I ended up flinging globs of the fibered aluminum into the paint I’d already applied and spreading it around to distribute the aluminum. It mostly worked, but it left me feeling silly and my new boots and pants splattered with aluminum paint. Also, in spite of my best efforts to stay clean, somehow painted ended up all over the sole of my boots, too, and I had to call down to my husband and ask him to meet me at an upstairs window with a clean pair of shoes so I didn’t track aluminum footprints through the house. Sigh. (Luckily, the paint on the soles came off very quickly when I walked around outside a bit, but the spots on top remain.) You can see a few of the smaller spots in this picture:

While I painted the roof, my husband began his work reinforcing the back door’s defenses. I actually don’t have many pictures from this day, Monday, because I didn’t want to touch my camera while there was any chance of getting paint on it! But I certainly made up for it the next day when the weather gave us a glorious, final look at fall; the sun was out and I spent plenty of time taking photos. I hope you’ll stop by Tuesday to see a few of them. =)