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I'm
not a very good block layer, but I managed to get this wall built to
hold back the dirt. The blocks are filled with concrete and
rebar, and I topped off the wall with cap blocks for a better
appearance. The whitish streaks on the walls are from water in
the concrete fill seeping out through the mortar joints and bringing
lime with it. Kind of ugly but I think I can live with it.
When
I applied for the building permit for the tower, I told the neighbors I
would try to minimize the visual impact to the mountainside by painting
the tower with dark, flat colors. I hate to call it
camouflage because I was mostly trying to reduce the glare off the
galvanizing rather than disguise it, but I figured as long as I was at
it I'd try to break up the pattern. Both the tower manufacturer
and several web sites suggested using a premium grade exterior latex
paint, so I used one with a built-in primer base (Behr Ultra series
available at Home Depot) in tan, dark green, dark brown, and black
colors.
After painting a few of the tower legs I propped them up against a nearby tree to see whether it was worth the hassle. Here is what they looked like in the shade ...
... and here is what they looked like in the sun. It's difficult to predict what they will look like assembled and from a distance, but it seemed to me that the paint sufficiently decreased the glare so I went ahead and painted everything except the joints.
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