Spiffing Up the Mennonite House

A good pressure wash and a couple of coats of marine spar varnish is just what the Mennonite house needs to bring it back up to par. it was looking kind of dingy on the outside.

A good marine-grade spar varnish (we use Helmsman UV-protected polyurethane Spar Varnish) will help add years to wood's life, in addition to making it look good. The down side of this, is that here in the tropics, even a top grade of spar varnish, like Helmsman, will only last a smidge longer than a year. We generally sand and re-brush the wood of the Mennonite house every year.

Kane Getting the Ladder Ready

 Part of painting or varnishing a wooden house that's nine feet up in the air is like only working on the second storey of a house. Up and down the ladder all day long. That part of the job is plain getting to be too hard for this old fart. Much better to let a younger man, like Kane here, do it. Besides, I know he appreciates the work too.

Results of Pressure Washing

 As you can see from the photo at left, the results of pressure washing. It removes all the grime and deteriorated varnish, leaving a nice clean wood surface for varnish to be applied. Of course, after the pressure washing, we let the wood dry out for a day or two, then a light once over with the sander and it's ready for a coat of varnish.

Brushing and More Brushing

 We've found that the only effective way to apply varnish is the time-tested brush. We've tried using Wagner sprayers. They just don't apply varnish thick enough, nor is it easy to control over-spraying, contrary to what the manufacturers say.

vive la différence

The difference is simply amazing. A good coat of varnish really brings brings the wood to life.

Altogether, the pressure washing of the whole house took Kane one day. The varnishing of the exterior with two coats will take about three days. Then there's the front and back porches that will each take a coat of varnish. A good week or so of work and it looks wonderful.

Is This Camelot?

By Geroge, it sure is beginning to look like it, what with the brand new round table and all. It was a small project, but one of those that took pretty much all day. The table ended up being four-foot diameter and about four inches thick - pretty good sized, but still in keeping with the size of the palapa.

Carlos Smoothing Poured Concrete

 Carlos spent most of the morning prepping the form - wood bottom surface and Celotex (same thing as Masonite) for the roundy part of the form. It really looks nice.

Kane Almost Done With The Pour

 Kane, the go-to guy for working thatch in the palapa also is young enough to hump the 100-pound 5-gallon buckets of concrete, of which it took several to complete the pour.

Carlos Getting It All Even

 Carlos worked in between each bucket-full to ensure the table top became level and that it was a consistent thickness.

We Had A Good-Sized Peanut Gallery

 As luck would have it, the table pour occurred on a Friday, which meant that we had a pretty good Happy Hour crowd to play the role of supervisors for the pour.

Carlos Floating the Finish

Finally, here's Carlos putting the finishing touches on the table before knocking off for the day. I have to confess, with as smooth as it was after Carlos got done with it and left, I came out later and noticed a bug stuck in the concrete. Naturally, I grabbed a piece of paper and gently tried to remove it so there would be no permanent reminder on the table. Well, guess what? I managed to leave a few scratches in the tabletop, even though I was trying to be extremely careful. We had talked about possibly tiling the top, so it now looks as though that is just what we're going to have to do - thanks to my skills at bug removal.

Still, it's a mighty grand looking table. I can't wait to have a party around it. It'll be fun - scratches and all.