So one of the (many) things we knew had to be done when we moved into this place was painting the exterior. W have wood siding that's painted To maintain, the siding should be repainted every so many years to hold the life and look of the paint. The paint was peeling and flaking in a lot of areas when we purchased the home so a summer paint job was in the books!
Excitedly, I decided I could tackle this job on my own- being an expert novice painter and all... I like to think I'm a pro, but a pro I am not. Tim says he sucks at painting- truthfully I think he just says that and plays dumb so he isn't stuck doing the tedious work with the pale and brush. He's either really selfish or one smart cookie. I think he's a little of both, but shhhh dont tell. ;)
Our house is literally butthole brown, if there is even such a thing. Picture this- take coffee, add cream, a little mustard, ketchup, wasabi, more cream, hell throw in a half gallon of ben & jerry's chunky monkey and blend well... or you can just bend over bare assed and look in the mirror- either way, the color you find is literally the color of our house. Shit brown. It's dull, lifeless and screaming for a makeover!
Without much thought, grey became the new color of choice. Glam Grey as I call it because it gives our house that special pop of wow now that it's painted with a fresh updated color choice. I had considered long and hard about changing our trim color from white to a beige, but that would involve me climbing onto the roof and up a ladder- which I do not do with my deathly fear of heights.. so white it remains (at least for now).
Check our some of our before, during and after shots of the exterior. The exterior isn't fully complete just yet, we're getting new garage doors, adding to the exterior trim and will be adding window shutters. But at least the hard part is over with. This project took me a good 2 months to complete, few hours here and there at a slow pace when I wasn't working (or grocery shopping, or cleaning, or doing laundry, or running errands, you get my point. I am woman, hear me roar!).
BEFORE: *this was the look of the house before we bought it. This is the truest contest of what it looked like before.
DURING:
Ok, so I know I said that I was tacklilng this job by myself... and I did, for the most part. But as I also mentioned before- me and heights clash like a good bottle of champagne and a cheap hooker. I am jus too scared to be up high on a ladder or even hanging over the deck railing looking down- I start to see double and get all weak in the knees. So I had to rally up the troops (and by troops I mean my kids and brother again) and put them to work. Thankfully Kayla was in a good mood this day (she's 16- need I say more?) Notice the shit brown flooring?! And notice how it's peeling and cracking? Exactly why it needed to be overhauled!!
So here's my big baby brother, Jon up on the extension ladder taking care of the high spots for me. Funny story, I have to share. So if you look above Jon's head you'll see the cedar shakes. At the bottom of those shakes there's a few large holes. Coming in and out of those holes are yellow jackets. This photo was taken right when Jon discovered there were bees buzzing around his head. Jon, for those of you who don't know is a big baby when it comes to things like bee stings. When he realized the bees were nesting above where he was working he was like F this, I'm out. Literally as soon as he said that a bee started buzzing around his face, he got nervous, lost balance and dropped the bucket of paint below him. I REALLY wish I had this all on camera because it was so funny when it happened. He swatted at the bee and of course we all know what happens when you piss a bee off! BZZZZZ ... STING! And when one thinks they're being threatened, they all start attacking! Long story short, Jon took a few for the team this day, getting stung on the arms, neck and shoulders. He lived.
Not too often you'll find me in the photos means I"m the man behind the lens most of the time, but this was me- literally shaking in the knees because I felt like I was up too high. You can clearly see my brother is standing next to me and I was only up about 5 feet. hahahaha
Part of painting the extior involved painting the cute little wooden walk to our front door. If you forget, that used to be shit brown also. Actually it was dark shit brown. The same color as a lot of the trim. I ended up mixing up my own floor color with a little siding and white and came up with this gorgeous light grey that really brightened the whole thing up!
So here it is, the finished product! Take a look and comment below.
