We painted!

The outside of our house needed painting - BAD!  We were those people on the block that had wood showing through the paint, and paint peeling on all sides of the house.  Below is when we first moved in - more than 4 years ago now!

And here is the new color!

It is a dark gray with white trim.  I like it soooo much better- maybe simply because there is no paint missing from spot on the house!  In my dreams we would also replace the roof with black or charcoal gray shingles, and then I would paint the front door a bright yellow.

Maybe something like this from pinterest:



Oh well - it is still so much better than it was before.

Oh also - while Nate and I are usually all about DIYing - we just had to get it professionally done this time... summer is just too short and we already have our hand full of other projects.

Our Painted House!

We're done! We attacked the painting job like ninjas and completed it in one weekend. We could not have done it all without the amazing help from my Dad, and Jeff's parents (THANK YOU GUYS!). 

Unfortunately, I literally have no photos of the painting in progress. That is because we were all up at 7 a.m. painting and didn't stop until at least 6 p.m. on Saturday. It was a team effort for sure, so there was no time for photography. 

The plan of attack was this:

1) Cut in around taped windows/doors

2) Cut in near peaks on west, south and north sides of the house. 

3) Use Sprayer to fill in all areas

4) Follow spray with brush to touch up areas (especially the under side of the shakes) and spread any "built-up" paint.

5) Paint the trim

Let's remind ourselves what we started with....

Here is our newly painted house in all her glory. We are SO pleased with the results. 

 It's amazing what a coat of paint can do! :)

Painting Prep

I started this series of posts last Friday with a post about our decision to DIY Paint our home's exterior. We actually finished up the job last weekend (perfect weather!). But before we could get down and dirty with painting, we had to get gritty and gross prepping for the project.

In all honesty, I think the prepping part may have been harder than the painting part. There were three main things that we did to prep the house.

1) Power Wash
2) Scrapping
3) Taping

I don't have any pictures of the spray washing, as my faithful father took on this task, while my hubby and I worked our day jobs. The take away is that he used an electrical power washer to spray down both the house and the garage. He worked from top to bottom, and used just enough pressure to blast off the dirt, but not so much pressure that he blasted off the paint or shakes (our house has cedar shakes).

The Scrapping was a major undertaking. Again, my father started the process while we were at work, and we joined in on the "fun" on Friday afternoon. We used a combination of these things to get the job done.

Wire Brush. 

Pic here.

Paint Scrapper

Pic here.

Another Paint Scrapper 

Pic here.

Good ol' fashioned flat head screwdriver. 

Pic here.

We actually purchased all of the tools at Home Depot (with the exception of the screwdriver, which we already had). So, feel free to visit your local HD for everything you need.

Here is a pic of the front of the house post scrapping. We had to scrap not only the flat surfaces, but also along the bottom of the shakes, where older paint had built-up. It was crucial that we removed both built up paint and peeling paint, as moisture can build up there. Plus, if you don't knock-off that stuff, you risk it chipping off later and messing up your paint job.

The final prep was taping. We rented an industrial paint sprayer for the big day of painting and we knew that we didn't want paint splattered all over our nice, crisp white windows. So, we taped off each window and door, using plastic drop clothes and painters tape.

Next post....painting! Here is a sneak peek :)

We Painted!

This is the outside color of our house currently (or somewhat current).

We have finally decided to take the plunge and paint the outside of the house. And we are planning to DIY the project.

The color we landed on isn't a big surprise, as it is similar to lots of the other colors we have chosen on the interior. We think Behr Anonymous is a great choice as it fits into the neighborhood seamlessly. The neighbor to our south has their home painted a nice beige-ish color. Similar to Behr Pebble Shore. The neighbor to our north has their home sided in a nice blue-ish color. Similar to Behr Windy Seas. We think that our choice (Behr Anonymus) will fall between those two colors perfectly. To contrast the Behr Anonymous, we have selected a nice crisp white for the trim, Behr Frost (no need to link....it's white).

Now that we have the colors picked out, we have to figure out how much paint we actually need on hand to complete the project.

Jeff did the math by measuring each side of the house, and subtracting the windows and doorways. Here is where we ended up:

South Side: 288
West Side: 248
North Side: 340
East Side: 182
Garage: 475

We decided to rent a paint sprayer to expedite the painting process. The plus of this, is that it moves along the painting, the minus is that it typically uses more paint. When all was said and done, we bought five extra gallons of paint to get our house/garage painted. Worse things could have happened though.

This DIY project is a massive undertaking (I was kinda thinking to myself "what the eff"), so I am planning on splitting up the project posts. Next up.....The Prep.