After I finished painting my two story Old Portland house, I decided that I would never do it again without something like this for the gable ends: (or else I would interview the pros and open up the checkbook)
Moving that damn ladder all day for days on end on uneven ground was a sisyphean grind.
(It doesn't help that I have a
very well developed sense of self-preservation and thus had a white-knuckled death-grip on the ladder when I was 30 feet up in the air that really extended the time it took to finish)
(PS, I don't think I ever completed every line of the punch list, either. Once the carcass was painted, all the trim was it's own journey, and I worked pretty much all summer and into the fall to get it "done", but I did it on my own, )