Painting the render

When the renderer was done, I could paint the wall! Or rather, after it would have dried. The solar panel people said they would bring my second batch of panels in early August, so there were several weeks in which I could get the job done. Internet said it would take 4 to 6 weeks to dry; the renderer himself said one week. I asked the neighbour. He said that some 10 days would be okay. He had painted the newly rendered house of the other neighbour after some 10 days. I decided to give it just over two weeks. And it was warm and dry weather, so I figured it would dry well.

I had done some googling of what paint to use. The result I ended up with was Emperor masonry paint, preceded by Emperor masonry primer. It was delivered even before the renderer was done. He looked at it and said it was good paint. I suppose he had nothing to win by saying that! So I assume he meant it.

The weekend I had assigned for it I got my stuff together. What I first needed was a ladder to get on top of the flat roof. Then I needed to check if I needed more ladders. I did! I first lugged my stepladder up onto the roof. But I decided that wasn't enough, so I lugged a proper ladder up as well. 

What I also needed was a brush (I had decided against a roller, on the basis of that I have got me a brush finish, and it is a bit of an uneven surface for a roller), and a container for the paint. The containers they had come in were way too big and unwieldy. I decided to go for an old plastic milk bottle with the top cut off. That meant I couldn't use a particularly large brush, but so be it! If I ever do this again I will just invest in a better container… I'm sure that helps my efficiency. And the primer was really liquid; it actually looked like milk, so it was no problem whatsoever getting that into the milk bottle. And then I was off painting.

Doing the primer was really quick. Especially the second layer; the first was on the raw render so the wall did quite some sucking up of the liquid. But it was quite comfortable. It's not very messy either. I could already see the hydrophobic qualities of the material when I put on the second coat! I could do that only an hour or two after the first coat. But I had to wait some eight hours before I could apply the first coat of actual paint. That was okay; the days are long. I could just do that in the evening.

Applying the primer

The easy application of the primer had lulled me into a full sense of security, though; I had underestimated how long it would take me to put a layer of actual paint on. The first obstacle was getting the paint into the milk bottle. This stuff had the consistency of yoghurt! And the tub was so big, there was no way you could tidily just decant it. I got myself a scoop from a cut-off water bottle… Quite a mess was the result, but it could have been worse! And then I was painting.

It is a bit of work, and the evening progressed. The swifts were circling overhead. I was hoping I would make it before it was too dark to see anything! And will be honest, by the time I was finally done, "anything" was pretty much all I could see. Distinguishing things had become a bit problematic.

The amount of daylight left when I was done with the first coat

The next morning I wanted to get the second coat on soon as I could. It would be a warm day! So after breakfast I got back onto my roof. I was glad to see it all looked even; the part of the wall I painted in the almost-dark wasn't looking any less good than the rest. And while I was getting increasingly sweaty in my overall I put the second and last coat on.

Finished painting!

I then had to get the ladders back down, and clean out the scoop and the brushes. And then I could take that overall off, and tidy the rest up. Job done! And now I was keen for the sun to move around the house and shine on my newly painted wall. It looked good! And now I only have to wait a few years to see if the water damage in my bedroom reappears. I really hope not! But it will take time to find out.

Now I need to get that off...

Result!

The neighbour said it looked good, but now the rest of the house looked grubby in comparison. He suggested that maybe I should paint the entire house. And he has a point! Maybe I should… No rest for the wicked I suppose!