More than I bargained for

I'm tired. I hurt all over.

The pibs is pooped, too.

While I painted the house, Robin ran around after squirrels; River sat next to me and stared at the paint roller; Simon slept. We're all pretty worn out.

I took the day off of work to keep up the painting. Yesterday, Adam and I were rollering the brick, while the kiddo and our friend Jessica cam behind us with brushes to fill in the mortar and other spots we missed. I was using a regular roller with a 1 1/4" nap roller cover; Adam was using a Wagner Paint Mate Plus with a 3/4" nap. The Paint Mate Plus is one of the ones where you fill the handle with paint, and pull a trigger to pump the paint into the roller. This all worked pretty well with 4 sets of hands.

Today, it was just me. Adam had shop stuff to do, and the kiddo went back to her mom's and to school. Just me and the pups-- and let's be honest: their lack of opposable thumbs really worked against us.

I used the Wagner roller for a while, and things went fine. When my arm started to get tired, I switched to the brush. Filling in all the mortar...took foreeeeeeever. It went sooooo slooooow. By about 1:45, I'd finally had it. I looked down the wall, and it was just freakin' miles of mortar to paint.

Luckily, I remembered that Harbor Freight had a 20% off coupon in the paper yesterday, so off I went to buy a cheap, shitty paint sprayer. (I also got a free flashlight! Bonus!!)

I got it home and started playing with it. I have to thin the paint so much, and the container is so small, that I don't want to use it for the majority of the brick, but it was definitely a turning point in my productivity for the day. Here's what I do. I paint with the roller, and then use the sprayer to put a quick, thin coat onto the mortar. Lastly, I take the brush and backbrush the paint into the mortar and splotchy areas. It goes so, so, so much faster. So I'm taking off tomorrow to try and get the rest of the house body finished. I know the trim won't happen immediately, but we will be so very close.

So very, very close.