We Got a Little Sidetracked

Andy and I primed the teen’s bedroom on Saturday. I won’t lie. It was not fun. I am not sure why I cannot get into painting in this house, but I better change my attitude quickly. Nearly every room needs to be painted. The local store where we are buying the paint for the walls was closed on Sunday, and I was not-so-secretly relieved. We could have worked on the trim since I have all the supplies for that job, but as I said in the title, we got sidetracked.

Previously, I have written about working on BHH’s drainage issues. Sunday, we were back at it. Andy and I noticed that we had plants growing in the gutters of the porch roof and the main roof on one side of the house. Since it was a beautiful day outside, and a torrential downpour was in the forecast, we moved cleaning the gutters to the front of the queue. Please excuse the poor photos. I did not want to take my good camera onto the roof.

(Disclaimer: Proper safety equipment is a good idea. Please be careful if you choose this DIY project. Be smart, and hire a professional if necessary. Mom, I was fine. Really. I promise.)

In the picture above, you can see all the debris on the porch roof from the nearby pine trees. I want to completely remove the trees, but Andy and I are not in agreement about that. He likes the shade. I think they are too close to the house, and clearly, they are making a mess on the roof. The shade is causing mildew and moss on the roof, side of the house, and the shutters. We do intend to get the trees trimmed way back so the branches will no longer be touching the house. That may help with the problem somewhat, but I will keep (gently) lobbying for their complete removal.

Up on the porch roof, we could see that the gutters were completely full.

I cannot even guess when they were cleaned last. We removed three 5-gallon bucket’s worth of pine needles and debris from the porch roof, and I pulled at least two bucket’s worth from the gutters and threw it to the ground below.

We followed our cleaning with a light spray of mildew, moss and algae cleaner over the entire porch roof since it had many patches of all three. The shingles are in good condition beneath, and they seem to be new within five years or so. I also ran water through the gutters to make sure that they drained properly down to the ground.

Unfortunately, we could not clean the gutters on the main roof because it is just too high (over 20 feet), and the pitch is too steep for us to do it safely with our current equipment. We are sure that the gutters look just as bad or worse up there since we can see plants growing in them too. We are leaning towards renting a bucket lift for a day or two, before winter, to do triage all the way around the entire house, and make small repairs as we can.

This is how things are at BHH. There is no shortage of projects, large and small. On any given day, we have to make decisions about whether or not the issues should be addressed immediately, or if they can wait. We are doing our best to make good choices.