When it was my Turn to "Whip the Brush", I Whipped it Good...

Poor Tom Sawyer. "Saturday morning was come, and all the summer world was bright and fresh, and brimming with life. There was song in every heart, and if the heart was young the music issued at the lips. There was cheer in every face and a spring in every step." 

With thirty yards of board fence nine feet high, a bucket of whitewash, and a long-handled brush, it appeared Tom would be working under the watchful eye of his Aunt Polly while his friends would come "tripping along on all sorts of delicious expeditions". (I love Mark Twain!) Tom became discouraged quickly until he devised a plan… Make the work look like a rare and privileged opportunity to have fun and accomplish a difficult task… 

First, it was Ben who surrendered his apple for his chance to whip the brush. Then Billy Fisher gave up his kite and Johnny Miller his dead rat. "The retired artist sat on a barrel in the shade close by, dangled his legs, munched his apple, and planned the slaughter of more innocents"…

Tom Sawyer was as innovative as he was lazy and he combined his skills and made it work. He was able to convince his buddies that painting was fun and they took the bait. Me? Not so lucky… I knew my double shed needed paint and that no one was gonna help… 

I put off painting the sheds for several years and when I decided to open up a Barstool Store to sell merch over Black Friday and Cyber Monday, I knew it was time to "whip the brush"...

It had already started to get colder overnight in Massachusetts and with the time change, it started getting pretty dark around 4:30-5:00. My days were short and that was okay by me; I can't paint for longer than 4 hours anyway. Truth be told, I hate painting! It can be very frustrating, extremely repetitious, and requires total concentration, something I have a lot of trouble with. I'm easily distracted. My wife and kids consistently tell me I have ADHD and if my wife was an MD and I was under her care, I'd be on meds and receiving weekly shock treatments… (they're overacting, I'm really not that bad)

It's not necessarily the painting I don't like, it's the preparation and then the cleanup that bothers me the most. But, when I paint around my house the price is right. When I decided to paint I remembered I had several unopened gallons of Benjamin Moore house paint, my favorite, that I bought years ago when I first decided to paint the sheds. I normally don't procrastinate, but when it comes to painting, I give myself  2-3 years to start a project. And, that might sound like a lot of lead time, but once I open a can of paint and have a brush in my hand, I realize it really isn't…

The new color was much lighter than the original, which was grayer. We liked the lighter color with the white trim.

My wife and I both wanted to change the trim color to white because it makes the main color pop, but it's much more work than painting the sheds all one color. As much as I don't mind whipping the brush on open areas, I find it extremely challenging to cut-in different colors. I've worked with many professional house painters over the years and I gotta say I was always impressed with the confidence and fluidity they displayed. They cut-in different colors without even the slightest hesitation. Me? not so much. I find cutting-in challenging and unnerving…

Time was of the essence and so I made sure to get out by 11:00 after the sun dried the sheds and wrap up around 4:00 when it was getting cold and dark. I knew finishing by Thanksgiving would be difficult, but I was confident I could get it done.

Love this brush! You'll be relaxing & laughing while you use this trim brush!

Once the doors were painted I started on the trim, parts of which had to be replaced. I ended up doing two coats on the trim using Benjamin Moore Low Lustre exterior paint I bought locally. While I was at the hardware store buying the trim paint I picked up a couple of new brushes. I saw a new-fangled trim brush and it looked like a brush that could make cutting-in easier. I bought one and also a quality 2" brush. One thing I took away from the painters I worked with over the years was that you need a good quality brush; cheap throwaways work, but not as well as more expensive brushes.

The new-fangled trim brush was awesome and it had me painting with confidence, fluidity, and pinpoint accuracy. Although I'm not a big fan of gloves, I wore thin rubber gloves while I painted and I never had to do more than wash my hands with soap and water when I was done.

This backside was clapboarded 32 years ago & because it doesn't get much sun it was weathered & required scraping

The combined measurement of the double shed, each part built at different times, is 20' x 10', which is a decent size building. And given all the trim, it took longer to paint than I estimated. The older part (32 years) is sided with cedar clapboards and those sections needed attention (scraping) and ultimately, two coats of paint. It really sucked it in. Unfortunately, I only had time for one coat but I plan on applying a second coat to those sections in the spring… The newer part, the motorcycle shed, was sided using fiber cement board, and it was still in perfect condition. It came with baked-on primer, had a coat of paint on it already, and even though there was a slight change in color, one coat covered well.

The older cedar clapboards were in rough shape & they were thirsty for paint. Although the back looks much better, it'll need a 2nd coat in the spring.

To me, painting is a task that sucks while you're doing it but is always worth it when you're done. Once I was done painting, the gutters were hung, and a solar motion light installed, Steve, my next-door neighbor for the last 34 years, told me he thought it looked like a brand new shed. That's all I needed to hear to make me feel good about my effort.

This is the best the sheds have looked in a very long time…

We live in a neighborhood where most of the houses are raised ranches built in the late '60s. We don't have water views or glorious sunsets we can see out our windows. We look out at each other's houses and yards, and when someone does any work, everyone notices.

"And when the middle of the afternoon came, from being a poor poverty-stricken boy in the morning, Tom (Sawyer) was literally rolling in wealth. He had besides the things before mentioned, twelve marbles, part of a Jews-harp, a piece of blue bottle-glass to look through, a spool cannon, a key that wouldn't unlock anything, a fragment of chalk, a glass stopper of a decanter, a tin soldier, a couple of tadpoles, six fire-crackers, a kitten with only one eye, a brass doorknob, a dog-collar - but no dog, the handle of a knife, four pieces of orange peel, and a dilapidated old window sash. He had had a nice, good, idle time all the while - plenty of company - and the fence had three coats of whitewash on it! If he hadn't run out of whitewash he would have bankrupted every boy in the village…"

And here's one for anyone who's had to "whip the brush"!