Preparing For Winter

One of the usual perks of living in a townhouse development is not having to do exterior maintenance such as landscaping, snow blowing and painting.  Of course that all comes with a monthly fee which can be reasonable or expensive.  In the case of our Minnesota home the fee is low enough to be quarterly but it does not include painting.  I think it probably did when the units were built but in time most of what had to be painted was covered with aluminum to eliminate that expense.  The exterior walls of the units are brick except for the garage backs and eaves which are wood.  We also have wood fences between each unit.  One neighbor called while we were out of town and said she was having her fence painted and would it be OK if the painter came in our patio so he could do a better job.  I said sure and have him paint my side at the same time and I'll pay you when we get home.  That 11 foot section of fence cost me $200 so this week I scraped all my exposed wood and painted it.  I had done some painting before we left on our last mission but it didn't weather well (cheap brand of paint - not this time).  In the picture you can see a few of many holes I filled in the wood siding that were there long before us.  You can also see the missing paint at the bottom of the boards (years of too much snow piled on them - OH and Wednesday it snowed in northern Minnesota).  The paint the neighbor used is a deck paint so I am hoping for longer life this time.  It is also much darker than the original color (again the lack of community control so many shades of the same color) but it has a nice richness to it.