Of all the projects we've done so far, and we have had some pretty killer transformations already, I think by far, our (my) most anticipated project yet is having the outside of our home painted.
This home sat on the market for over 6 months when it was first listed, in a neighborhood where homes tend to sell within days. While the inside was dated for sure, I honestly believe one of the biggest hurdles this house had was curb appeal. The current color scheme just isn't doing it any favors. I knew we would want to repaint the outside when we bought this home, but we had prioritized the interior work since we had some time before we had to move in. It's a helluva lot easier to re-do your floors without having to move any furniture or be careful to keep things clean.
But, that meant we had to put painting on the back burner and I was disappointed. I feel like this house just really won't feel like "ours" until the outside reflects what we see in our heads. Does that make sense?
A little backstory on the painting: The previous owners had just had the house painted last year before listing the home. Apparently, the trim, gutters, etc were all the same maroon shade as our shutters and door, and they painted them olive-y green to better compliment them. I can't even imagine what that must have looked like and I don't really want to. But, since the paint was freshly done, we figured we would have time (a couple years) to pace out some other projects and save up for that. Unfortunately for us, whoever painted the house last year did a really poor job. There are areas where you can see the wood underneath the brush strokes (not enough coats), paint all over the windows, and the kicker, they used the wrong kind of paint for exterior exposure.
We had multiple contractors provide estimates for painting, and 3/5 of them noted that they were concerned the type of paint used was incorrect. Sure enough, after a few months of heavy, rainy, winter, we're finding more and more damage to the siding. The paint isn't doing its job and protecting the siding underneath! So frustrating.
So, we have decided to bump this up the priority list for 2019 and make sure our siding is protected. Painting a house isn't cheap, but re-siding it is 10x more expensive, so we're making sure it doesn't come to that.
As a reminder, here's a snapshot of what our house currently looks like:
We picked up a few samples of some colors we had discussed (and a wild card), and guess what... we are split down the middle! My top 2 and his top 2 don't overlap 😂Oh no! We each picked one from our top 2, and compared side by side and they are similar. You can tell we have a theme, and definitely know we are comfortable in the blue/grey category. The trim and windows will be going from that brown/grey to white, and we will repaint the front door at some point too!
I think we are leaning towards a blue tone (we've discussed having a blue house for years), but I also really like the grey! The only problem is there are a couple grey homes on our street already (including our next door neighbor). I just think a blue color would be really beautiful and not blend in too much with the neighbors.
I tried to do a crappy photoshop job to share with you guys of what we're hoping it will look like when it's all finished, but my PS skills are pretty lacking. So instead, here's some of our inspiration that's helping us guide our paint choices.
I'll keep you posted on the color that wins out in the end! We are super duper excited, and can't wait to get this done. We're scheduled for end of March/early April (weather depending) so fingers crossed I can stay patient :)
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