I just saved a bunch of money...

I just saved a bunch of money over the weekend and I am proud of it. You see it's been awhile since I last had my house powerwashed. It's one of those "house" projects that sort of sneaks up on you over time. You usually don't even think about it until one day you ask "didn't our columns used to be white?" The last time that I noticed this, we hired a guy and his son (real nice folks) to go ahead and take care of the dirty work. Four hundred dollars later and they had done a nice job. Certainly, it made sense to do that again, right? Wrong. Upon consultation with Car 1 (that would be Jules) I discovered that it was going to cost approximately $400.00 more than we currently had to hire the same folks again. Damn! I guess it was up to me.

Since I didn't actually have a powerwasher, I had to borrow my neighbors. "Anything I need to know about this thing?" I asked. "Not really, use a bleach solution on the eaves and then hit 'er with the powerwasher. And one more thing. Watch how close you get to the actual surface." That is real good advice because as it turns it out, if you are not careful, you could actually put a hole right through the surface of whatever you are washing. At least that's what I have heard. (Nathan can now wave at me through the stucco wall from his bedroom. OOPS!!)

So I had it all set up, two garden sprayers full of 1)a bleach solution and 2) a Simple Green solution for the doors and windows. Off I went at 0900 on Saturday morning. I actually thought that it was going to be fun. I had messed around with the powerwasher on Friday night and there was something masculine about slamming water into the side of my house at 3000 mph and watching dirt fly off without any brushing. So here is how it went. I sprayed the bleach solution on the eaves around the house usually with me on my ladder and then hammered away with the water. Awesome. Dirty to white. I felt like yelling "dirty house? Clean it up with Orbit!!" I was making Tim Allen proud. Dirt and water flying everywhere. I was soaking wet but didn't care. I don't think I stopped for a full three hours. When I finally took a break, I realized that my favorite navy blue Ireland hat now looked strangely different. Uhhhh, or should I say DUHHHHH, a bleach solution is used to make things white. So much for my favorite hat. It has several large spots on it now and a cool sort of whitish mist look. No big deal.

I continued at a feverish pace only stopping to refill the fluids (gas, bleach, and Simple Green) and finished 90 percent of the house on Saturday. I finally stopped six hours into the job to watch the Irish football game (victory!) I am happy to report that the only real issues I had were a few extremely hard to reach areas, the occasional swallowing of some bleach dripping from the roofline, a few ladder issues, and the occasional tangling with a spider or two. I did happen to blast a huge spider about 60 feet in the air. That was cool!

Saturday night I collapsed with more aching muscles than I could recall I had. So my doctor ordered up an 800 mg Motrin. Ahhhhh, relief. Bright and early Sunday morning, I finished up the dirty work on the remainder of the house. I was really in awe of the difference that it made. I was so impressed, I decided to start on the fence. About an hour into that job, I had a sort of what the hell were you thinking moment. Too late. Keep going. So I did. I managed to finish the entire inside of the fence and was elated before realizing that I needed to do the outside of the fence as well. Crap, that was for another day.

So Sunday evening, Jules does the walk around and congratulates me on a job well done. "Thanks", I said. It was alot of work and admittedly, I wish I could have afforded to have someone else do the job. But at the end of the day, I felt alot more satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment at having done the work myself. Now, when does the real weekend start??