Painting Re-revisited

Finally an explanation of why the paint on our 188 year old house has huge white smudges in it.  We wanted to have environmentally friendly paint and also paint which is for "pamatky",  the name for old buildings or monuments that are considered part of the Czech Republic heritage, therefore, can't be torn down.  The ecologically kind paint was supposed to let our 3 foot thick walls breathe.

The smudges were due to the lime which didn't mix with the terracotta particles.  Great color except for what looked like a giant's fingerprints all over it.  Yesterday they came with similar paint from another company.  Less fingerprints, but there all the same.

After three week of scaffolding and three different paints,  21 September we finally have the color without smudges. 

Today the painters surprised us by ringing our bell at 6:15 a.m.  No smudges so far, but the color is, well,  a bad pink.  I saw the color we ordered on an old building on one of the narrow winding streets in the center of Prague last year.  It was a lovely warm red.  I've seen similar colors on other old buildings. Nothing like what the painters are putting up now.  Why are we having such a hard time getting the right color?!

Three weeks of scaffolding and it looks like at least another. The bars holding up the planks outside our windows are beginning to feel like a prison.

Painting Revisited

Our house has scaffolding around it.  This ragged dress has disgraced our outside walls for almost three weeks.

Last November  when our 14 month renovation finished, it was too cold to put on the last coat of paint.  On the sunny warm days of two and a half weeks ago the building company returned  to plaster the cracks that developed over the winter on our facade and paint.  They painted two walls and left.  Not only did those two walls look worse, but they didn't match the other walls.

A verbal skirmish between me and the building assistant ensued in which she insisted our original agreement was to paint two walls.  My look to her upon her departure was not warm and fuzzy.

Two days later the architect, the building engineer and the building company's manager appeared and we all agreed the cracks needed more fixing and the paint job was appalling.  We were assured all would be fixed.  However, the painters would be out of the country the next week, so we had to wait.

They showed up three days ago on Monday, fixed the cracks and painted the whole house which still looks as bad as it did when they painted two weeks ago.   My husband and I can't figure out why the terra-cotta paint still has large whitish smudges all over it.  The house looked better before these painters put a brush to it a couple of weeks ago.

The painters are coming today with a new paint.  I am in growly guard dog mode prepared to spend the day sniffing around to make sure all is in order.