You get what you pay for.

If you are going to have your 9 year old and 3 year old paint, well, you just have to lower your standards a bit. Of course the good news is that their stamina is short lived and you will soon be able to take over and do the job right finish what they started. It doesn't help that the temperature would soon be in the upper 90s so that you kick yourself for waiting until 10am to start this project (actually I think it was 101 degrees that day). Having a puppy running about your project chasing the chickens isn't too helpful either. More good news...the puppy just likes to scare them to death, not actually eat them...yet anyway. Even more good news...the puppy only ended up with one red whisker and one small red paint splotch on his hind quarters. I thought that was pretty good.

I don't know what I was thinking. That chicken coop sure doesn't look all that big. I can finish it in no time...so I thought. I didn't count on the fact that OSB totally soaks up the paint. Yes, only minutes into the project I realize the error of not priming first. To top that off, OSB has all of these little nooks and crannies in it so that you can't just roll over it with the roller brush and expect it to be covered. NOooooo, you have to go over it 6 kazillion times with the force of a freight train in order to get the paint everywhere it needs to be. "It's only a chicken coop" I say to myself. "It doesn't have to be perfect." For the friends that know me and are reading this, you can stop snickering now.

The seemingly "couple of hours" job ended up taking ALL DAY. I finally got smart and had Mr. P bring me some water. "What?" you might ask. Why wasn't Mr. P out there painting alongside me? Well, Mr. P "doesn't do painting". I had to chuckle. I figured he spent time out there sweatin' while building the thing so I certainly didn't begrudge him not painting. In the end, he did come out and paint that part above the chicken wire pen. I was really grateful for that! I didn't want to have to balance on top of that to paint the top part.

So, I say I finished it in a day. Technically I didn't paint the inside of the windows but I wasn't sure if I was going to paint them red or wait and paint them white when we put white trim up. All in all, it looks okay although it would have been nicer had I started with primer. It probably would have saved me a bit of money because I wouldn't have had to send Mr. P back to the store for another gallon (did I mention that OSB totally soaks up the paint?). So what do you think? Do you think it looks okay "for a chicken coop"?Yeh, that's me...the Chicken Whisperer. I don't think that is all 22 but it sure is funny having these girls run after me. We have discovered that we do have 2 roosters. Yeh! I just love my chickens and I am happy that they have 2 roosters to keep them happy.

I fully intend on posting more regularly. First I need to get Susan her own laptop so that I don't have to "duke it out with her" to get some computer time. In the mean time, bare with me and I'll start getting more regular. Thanks for coming to visit and let me know how wonderfully my chicken coop is painted. HA!