Exterior Painting Update: Bye, Bye Brown House!

Do you ever go into a project knowing that it's going to be a big time and money suck...but hoping it's worth it in the end?

Maybe that describes most all house projects.

We endeavored on one such project this summer:  painting the exterior of our house.

Last summer we had a hail storm that reeked havoc all over the neighborhood.  Our house fared well, but the siding and paint got dinged up.  We were never in love with the color of our house to begin with, so we decided to dive in and switch it all up!  

We knew it would take a lot of time, so the first thing we did was get some estimates to hire it out.

After getting two bids that both far exceeded what we wanted to spend, we stopped doing that.  Then we started looking into doing the work ourselves.  Since our house is on a hill and two-stories tall, there were a few challenges.  We would need to rent some taller ladders and/or scaffolding, and there was also the danger of falling.  We both knew full well that I would not be going up a 30-foot ladder, and even though Matt is confident with heights, it certainly wasn't ideal to have his ladder on a hill with only his scaredy-cat wife as a spotter.

So, we opted for what we hoped was the best of both worlds: hire out the difficult stuff and paint the rest ourselves.

Now that it's finished it doesn't seem so bad, but I will admit that it took us three months from start to finish (July-October), and there were many days when I felt like every free moment went to painting.  I would get up and paint an hour before the kids woke.  Then in the afternoon I would paint an hour while they had quiet time.  Then Matt would come home and we'd try to get a few hours in after dinner.  Thankfully the weather was great (not too hot or humid) and the days were long!

So, let's get to it.  

Here is the "before" of our house, what Nathan affectionately described as a "big, ugly brown box".

(I still remember taking this photo from the van while driving by before closing)

Brown siding, brown doors, brown roof...brown, brown, brown.

Here is the "after":

Improvement?

It's not completely finished, because I still intend to add some shutters and a window box to our puny front window to beef it up a little.  We also plan on redoing the landscaping next Spring.  (We're sick of caging all of our plants, so we're going fully deer resistant...hopefully). And, what to do with that front door?

I do however, love that it's so much lighter! No more blah brown (well, except the roof).  

We even painted the garage doors, which Matt was hesitant about, but I'm so glad we did.  At one point, Addie told me to quite painting everything white...but if just felt so good!

Since we had all the light fixtures down, we replaced those as well.  Bye-bye 1980s brass!

I found this light for the front door at Menards of all places.

(...and we still have an ugly doorbell)

For the garage, I bought two barn style lights on super sale at a local lighting store down town.

 

 This is the west side of our house.  We hired out the just the upper half of this side.

Finally, here is the rear of our house.  

We also hired out the upper story back here.  I took this late in the afternoon, so excuse the crazy shadows! Part of the reason, it took so long is because we waited to do the left side of the back until after the garden was done for the season.  So, there was about a month where we mentally checked out of the painting project and didn't do anything.

These lights on the back are not new, but show evidence of the Asian invasion.  Asian beetles were everywhere, ugh!

 I should also mention that Matt replaced a dozen or so of the siding boards which were damaged or just in need of replacement.

So, for better or worse the painting project is now over!

We are still negotiating a few things with the painting company we hired (unfortunately we did not have a positive experience), but in all we saved about $2,000 by doing some of the work...no small amount of changed!  Granted, we could've saved even more by painting it all, but you have to pick your battles!

Now, excuse me while I go off and finish our basement!