Brown house

The exterior of our house desperately needed to be repainted.  We found out from a neighbor that he and his then-painting partner were the last ones to paint it in 1986.  It was a lovely yellowish color with dark green trim that he has detested since the day it went on.  He gave us the name of his former partner who is still doing exterior painting.  We hired him to spray the siding since it is grooved cedar and would have taken ages to paint by hand.  We also ultimately hired him to paint all the trim that required crawling around on the roof.  Austin primed and painted everything else.

It turned out to be a long, drawn-out headache over the span of 2+ months with the contractor.  Our neighbor thoroughly apologized for ever recommending him.  After having to rush into a decision on color (Austin & I differed on green vs. brown) so the painter could get started on March 30, the house sat for a solid month with just the south side and garage siding painted.  There were all kinds of excuses and delays and irritating spans of no communication.  Meanwhile, Austin spent every spare moment in sun, rain and wind to get all the trim and porches primed and painted white.  He was pretty much done by the time the painter finally came back.  It still took another month of delays and excuses to get the job finished.  However, I am very happy with the outcome.  We also had all new white gutters put on since the existing green ones were pretty worthless.

But enough whining, here are the before, during and after pictures!

This was taken when we bought the house.

Taken 3/29/12 after the shutters were off and some scraping was already done. (Sorry about some of the weird coloring)

Lots of scraping and power-washing

 This is what it looked like most of the cold, rainy month of April.

 A dedicated painter--58 degrees and raining

 

Making progress!

Changing the front & back doors from green to red

Original wood exterior doors on attached garage--replaced with six-panel white fiberglass doors (and they actually open and stay shut now!).  Austin also installed a new screen/storm door on the back door.

 Final result!

Topped off with new house numbers and exterior lights, doesn't this front door say "Welcome!" now?!?  :o)