|
|
|
issues with paint adhesion
Tuesday, October 14 2014
The day was warm and humid in that rare and welcomed way that days can be mid-October. Gretchen wanted to meet me over at the Wall Street house at around 5:00pm, so, after finishing the work I needed to do in front of my computer, I drove out to the house and busied myself with taping off the baseboard in the dining and living rooms and then caulking in some places and priming in others. Meanwhile, Eric was concerned that the paint he'd been painting on some parts of the house was not adhering. He'd found that on the south and west side of the house, the places that had gotten the most sun, the primer just peeled up like a patch of rubber. He asked me what he should do, but he's the professional; he's supposed to figure that stuff out. I thought perhaps it had something to do with there being nothing much left of the old sun-baked paint but pigment, whose chalky consistency was preventing proper adhesion.
Gretchen showed up at around 4:20 and took the news of the poor adhesion less well than I had. It was enough to make her tell Eric that the going rate for painters in our area is $25/hr, not the $40 he's charging us. To me, she said simply, "Next time, we hire professionals. You live and learn." To me, that seemed a little harsh; Eric had given us the cheapest quote of anyone we'd talked to. But then again, Gretchen has a strong cultural resistance to being the freier and had also had a hard day at the literacy center. So we went out for happy hour drinks at the Stockade Tavern, where I had a Little Sumpin' Sumpin' Ale from the tap (I'd tried a new IPA from Keegan Ales, but it had seemed somehow both watery and excessively-bitter at the same time.)
Back at the house, Gretchen made us a yummy taco dinner with various odds and ends.
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?141014 feedback
previous | next |
