We have the day off from work. Dawn spends much time knitting, as she’s pretty much done with scarves (and the hat she made me) and has moved on to the much more complicated sweater. This involves knitting in the round, using circular needles. Circular needles are like the nunchucks of knitting needles.

I spend much of the day painting. Painting boring old plywood. Along with patching the roof with good old Henry 208 Wet Patch Roof Cement, I’m also replacing the plywood around the skylight. The skylight’s kinda like a cupola or dormer, with four sides, on which the plywood is nailed. It’s mostly just the side on the south that’s rotting away. And that makes sense, as that side gets the most (and most intense) sun.

So I had bought four 2′ x 4′ Handy Panels of 1/2″ plywood, and I cut each to 16″ x 30″ and then paint both sides. First is an oil based primer, then an enamel topcoat. I don’t suppose I necessarily need to paint both sides, since one side will be facing inward, but I seem to understand from general woodworking concepts that like table surfaces will warp if you only finish one side. So I paint both sides.

And but it’s hard to paint both sides of a big old rectangle. You can’t just flip it over after finishing one side and lay that wet paint on the workbench or drop cloth. So I nail two little brads on each end, which brads rest on blocks, so that I can flip each piece over to paint both sides.

The brads really turn out to be too small for this purpose, but they are just barely adequate. I’m able to stack all four pieces with paint on both sides, sorta like green wood that’s been stickered to dry. I guess that’s where I got the idea. I get paint all over my hands, but happily not all over anything else, like the kitchen floor.