mellowtigger | the front steps

Well... I've finished painting the front porch steps. I spent all morning working on it, and I finished just as the sun reached over the house and touched the front step posts. The color, unfortunately, is not really what I had in mind.

Even at the store, the guy mixing the paint thought it was extremely light compared to the color swatch "111G - Blue Palisade". He took it behind the counter to apply an air drier to a wet dab. The dab did darken considerably after it dried. Still, though, it definitely looks different on the steps now, after I spent my morning in the shade working on the steps.

I was expecting a dark navy blue, something like this: . Instead, though, I got a bright strong blue like this (pictured at right) after it dried for a few hours.

I'm hoping it's mostly because I used white primer under this coat, on the lightly sun-damaged wood. It drank up a lot of that primer. I'm hoping it goes on darker when I do the windows, few of which really need the primer treatment before this paint-and-primer combination that I have now. Regardless, I think I'll end up with a house that's much more noticeable than it was before. That's okay.

I don't know who thought the design for step guardrails should include small vertical bars of wood that need to be painted individually on all sides within "striking distance" of a hand trying to do the painting on a neighboring pole. I beg to disagree with that design plan.

Meanwhile, I'm indoors during the afternoon heat, and I collected a small bowl of juneberries from my front yard. It's so dry in Minneapolis now that even my clover is turning crispy. My cherry tree, of course, dropped all but a few fruits that are still growing. We're expecting rain tomorrow, and it should finally bring cooler temperatures.