Life Down Wattle Lane... v2: Another Beautiful Weekend At The Block

We've just had two really beautiful days up at the block, the weather has been just amazing in Kaiwaka & Mangawhai. Perfect for a little painting.

All the doors and windows have gone in, the insulation is in, all the exterior cladding is up and they've started work on the deck. So it's now time for us to paint the exterior.

I must say, I find it hard to get excited about painting, it is very boring, and a time consuming task. It is not until the job is done, that I get a sense of satisfaction.

We decided not to paint the side with the deck, as we need the builders to finish that first. So we focused on the other 3 sides. We managed to get 1 coat of undercoat on, along with 1 top coat, and half of the 2nd top coat done. Not to mention we did all the prep stuff, filling holes/gaps/cleaning, masking up the windows etc.

But despite our best calculations on the paint quantity, we have run short. I think we will need at least another 8 litres.

With the paint, I've always liked Dulux, I've used it on past renovations, and I find it really good for an amateur painter like myself. But what I like the most it's very quick to dry, so you are not sitting around waiting for paint to dry. Also it is easy to clean up, and the finished paint job looks good.

For the exterior we have used:

* DULUX 1 Step Acrylic Primer Sealer Undercoat

* DULUX Weathershield X10 Low Sheen Acrylic

For the exterior colour we have gone with "Kauri Cliff's Double". Very nice, kinda of a natural/neutral/earthy colour. We had to be a little mindful of the "Light Value Ratio" as not to void the warranty on the cladding. Had to have a LVR of 40+ and the Kauri Cliffs Double was 53.

Oh just with buying paint, we worked out what we needed months before we needed the paint. We had a trade quote supplied to us from the building company, which was really good compared to the standard retail price. Paint in NZ is just crazy expensive! But we waited patiently for a sale, and Guthrie Bowron had a 25% discount sale on Dulux paint. So we brought all our paint at once. We saved another $200 on the trade price quoted to us. The timing was very good too, the sale was 2 weeks before we needed to start painting.

But hopefully the deck will done by next weekend, so we can finish the painting. Perhaps enjoy our first drink on the deck!