Friday, October 07, 2005

Mr. Scaffolding

It's not easy to admit that it took me six years to paint our old house, but in my defense, I did a hell of a job. One thing I certainly learned is that it is worth the time and expense to set up scaffolding. I own two five foot levels, one set of screw jacks, and an OSHA plank. I put them to good use.

I realized this week, that I needed to get moving on painting the trim of the new addition. So today I rented another set of 5 foot scaffolding and a set of three foot, and built a pretty good platform to work from as I paint the bargeboard and get under the eaves. It is supposed to get warmer, tomorrow and Sunday, so if I'm lucky I'll get most of it primed tomorrow and perhaps even start topcoating on Sunday.

3 comments:

Greg said...

My neighbor owns 3 sections of scaffolding he says I can borrow when it comes time to paint my house. He is my new best friend. :-)

Someone else told me they bought a small, used bucket lift on EBay for $2000. They plan to sell it once their house is painted. I have a tall Victorian and I'm seriously thinking about this.

Anonymous said...

Scaffolding has been some of the best money I spent...I bought quite a bit of used scaffolding from a rental place. I made my own "planks" out of 2X4 and osb--this way they are wider and stiffer than ordinary planks--and at the time much, much cheaper...I've also used these planks for "ramps" and tables (set up on saw horses). Scaffolding...good stuff

Mike said...

Greg:

I can't speak highly enough of scaffolding, but I'll admit I also thought about a bucket when I had to do the front gable on my old house, but given the way I work in pieces, it wouldn't have been good, plus the old place had such a small yard, I'd have had no where to store it.

Anonymous:

I do OK with just using 2x12's for most of my planking. It allows me to move them more easily by myself, but I really do like my one wide plank to put on first. I do have two 14' 2x12 that allow me to work over the sides of the scaffold, as shown in the pics.