Oxblood

For the porch floor paint I went to a local paint company.  I've always wanted to start using them to better support the local economy, but Sherwin Williams is so darned convenient and I already own the fan deck of colors and they have such a nice selection of A&C appropriate shades that I hadn't actually bought paint from them.  I go in there and bug their designer and I have ordered wallpaper and they used to make a nice spar varnish until NYS outlawed it. 

Anyway, we went in the shop and I asked the super friendly guy for the chips for the porch and floor paint.  They could custom mix anything, but for some reason I didn't trust myself choosing a color for this.  Chris and I chose the red color which was called patio red.  The porch was already red, so I figured I'd stick with it.

As I was painting I kept thinking that my fingers were bleeding because this red paint could be used for slasher films.  Then I got some on my toe, so I was constantly distracted by my 'bleeding' toe.  I also kept thinking of other names that would be more appropriate than Patio Red.  Clearly this paint should be called Sangre de Christo, or Oxblood.  Then I started thinking about how this must be some sort of evolutionary thing, if we didn't notice that we were bleeding we wouldn't survive long enough to propagate the species, and my constant distraction by the paint on my toe must mean that I'm either more highly evolved, or less highly evolved, and I wonder which is the case.  This sort of thing is always going on in my head.  Chris never asks what I'm thinking about.

Here's how it turned out:

It dried lighter than oxblood, and I'm really happy with how it turned out.  I put three coats on the uncovered portion of the porch.  Sears called this area the terrace, nice eh?  Hopefully I won't have to do it every year and hopefully no one falls into the root cellar under the porch anytime soon.

Adult ADD - PPS

Lately I haven't been able to work on a project without thinking about all of the other projects that I hope to have completed by the time the snow flies.  These projects have seen lots of snow in their current state, but every year I hope to have them finished.  

Many of the projects or maintenance activities around here don't get finished because I want to do them bigger and better than they currently are.  For example, the porch floor.  Ever since we moved in I have wanted to tile the porch floor, but then there are other things I would rather spend money on and a tiling project would undoubtedly require at least one new tool and I wouldn't be able to run over to the Depot and pick out tile because nothing would ever be that easy and on and on it goes.  Until the porch floor is crumbling and I break down and paint it.  It looks good painted, that's probably why the porch at this house has had a painted red concrete floor for decades.  It occurred to me while I was painting all of the bugs and dust (reinforcement for crumbling concrete) that this must be some kind of learning disability, maybe a form of ADD which I suspect I suffer from anyway.  This inability to just perform maintenance activities in a timely manner without worrying about how great it could be if I only added this extra detail or that special touch.  Another symptom could be project pile up syndrome which is when you start thinking about one project and that leads to the next project and then you realize that you have a lot to do (before the snow flies) and before you know it you have a tall bloody mary in your hand and you're sitting on the porch looking to the other houses in the neighborhood for guidance.  Generally the other houses and I agree that this house isn't so bad and that nothing actually needs to get done at all.  And the terrible aluminum storm windows weather another winter...