Our front gate has been needing to be painted for a while. My homemaking heart sees lots of projects, but my budget-conscious mind knows that there's only so much we can do. So we prioritize as best we can. The gate saga started with us getting it cleaned up and primered--ready for the paint. Then it was off to find the right kind of paint at a reasonable price.
We really wanted to go with latex paint only that is not what is popular here. It's hard to find, and the locals will flat out tell you you have to use oil-based. We went to the paint store at the entrance of our village, and he seemed to know what he was talking about. Due to its lack of popularity here and the fact that they are new products which are not sold everywhere, there was only one kind one brand that would fit what I wanted. We purchased it and went back home. Pawn did the first coat, but it never got finished. So when we needed a second gallon, I took over the painting to get the job done.
When we went to get the second gallon, we learned that we pretty much had to return to the original paint store in order to get the same paint. Rusty and I taught on Monday and stopped by on the way home. This time it was a different salesman who said we could not use what we bought the first time. We had to buy oil-based. Ugh! Now I didn't know who to believe. We thought we were still having problems with the gate simply because it needed more paint.
That night I found the paint brand online, found the spec sheet for the paint I had bought, enlarged the super small Thai font and read for myself that the paint I bought could be used on metal. Pawn returned the next day, met with the original salesman, and everyone was happy.
Rusty helped me on the first day, and we got all of the wide spaces covered, and Rusty helped fill in some holes as well. Texas even wanted to help, but we had to keep him from getting his paws into the fresh paint.
Even at this point, the gate looks so much better, but all of the little angled bars and straight bars still have to be covered. I guess I'm a picky painter as I didn't like the small brush because it was too flimsy, and the big brush caused too many runs. So I've been standing outside painting the bars with my finger. I've had quite a few stares and comments from passer-bys. They've been positive, but I'm sure in the back of their minds they're wondering why I'm using oil-based paint using my finger. I'll keep it a secret that it's really latex just in case our gate looks bad in another month or two.
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