Archive: Jul 2013


O! The Joy of Maintenance

I have had various maintenance projects in my lifetime. From washing down external walls to landscaping my backyard to the most recent one “my deck”

As a Nigerian Canadian, the word maintenance is foreign to some of us regarding the houses we live in.

My first experience of maintenance was the fall of 1984, most of the ladies at church were talking about fall cleaning and I quickly understood it to be the period of recycling clothes, shoes including washing down the inside walls, kitchen cupboards and the list goes on.

I was fascinated by this and thinking to myself; what is this culture all about? Why do they do these things? Is it that they can’t afford to replace these items? They must be really poor.

As time went on, we located to a big city to continue with our work in the mission field.  While here the Lord blessed us with a house that has an external garage building.  The wooden garage door always bordered me because it looked old and by my standard need replacing.

I started making enquiries regarding how we can replace it. In that process I talked to a colleague at work that is an expert on woodwork and she informed me about why the garage door looked that way.  She said what I see are build up of weather conditions and dust. She proceeded to tell me all I needed to do is pressure wash it. I was startled and now very curious; what is pressure wash I asked?

She gave me a detailed instruction on where I can rent the tools I need and how to use it. I could not wait for the perfect Saturday morning to get to work.  The result was outstanding.

Years later we moved to another city and our home had a beautiful backyard and a deck. Over time, I noticed the same look I saw on my former garage on the deck, except this time I knew what to do.  So, I made a few enquiries with neighbors regarding pressure washing it and the vote was unanimous. I went to work and was amazed at the beautiful woodwork underneath the grime that weather conditions have created.  Above is a before and after photo of a portion of my deck before applying the proper stain to protect it and gives it a new look.

O! The Joy of Maintenance.

 

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