House Exterior Paint- the finished house

I realized when I updated about my garden yesterday, I had never posted pictures of the house with the painting all done.

Today I went out in the freezing cold and took these pictures. It was so cold, I didn't want to pick up anything outside before I took the pictures so please ignore that :)

 Took this picture right before painters came.

 After!! House color is Sherwin Williams - mossy oak. We had it color matched and used Benjamin Moore- Aura Exterior Paint. Our painter educated us and said, since the majority of the cost in painting is labor, you save more money in the long run if you use a quality paint which lasts longer. I totally agree- so far so good :) The trim color is Benjamin Moore White Dove.

 
Here is a picture from right before we moved in.



Here it is now...Christmas lights up still and everything ;)

 After

After

House Exterior Paint!

Our house is getting painted finally! A few months ago, I decided I was really sick of it and started scraping paint myself to get things prepped. Once I got to the ladder on the garage only 15 feet up I was scared and did not feel confident doing anything. I was able to convince Cam to get some quotes. And after a good quote from someone and waiting for our turn- they started last week!

Now for some before pictures:

This is a picture from last year.

 Progress!!! The garage face siding and up to the door has been painted the new house color. They did all of the front trim first. The color is Behr Mossy Oak- but was color matched in Benjamin Moore Aura Exterior. It is pricey stuff but is suppose to last longer and save more money in the long run. The trim color is Benjamin Moore- White Dove (also Aura).

We painted our shed the Mossy Oak color last year and so I knew it was the right color for the house and for my taste. It's darker and warmer than the old grey. As you can see in the picture above it is a touch more green.

Here is the side, they did the trim and primed all the bare wood. I can't wait for it to get done. Its going to look so much better.

I will update next week!

And the painting continues!-- The shed

The good painting weather is still on! Friday I started painting the shed during Noelle's nap in what I thought would be a quick job. Note to self, get the right paint roller for the job. The shed is heavily textured which I knew but the thicker rollers for that are more pricey and I got the smaller one. It took too long and I got a good arm workout from pressing so hard.

Before and afters:

 Before

 After

 Before- Note the door. It wouldn't ever shut without considerable force and lifting. Cameron fixed it and put new trim on.

 After

 

 Before

After

Trim is Behr- Alabaster and Shed color is Behr- Mossy Oak. 

This is the last painting project for a little while. I'm so burned out!

The Painted Deck (Finally!)

One of our first projects when we moved in was fixing the deck so it was safe for kids. Fast forward to almost two years later and we finally painted it. The weather has been better for painting and I couldn't stand the deck the way it was any longer.

I spend 3 hours scrubbing the dirt off the deck and the mold off the posts (since it took us so long to paint that part). I just used TSP, bleach, and water.  That was Thursday night. Friday I went to Sherwin Williams to get "Super Deck" paint so I could paint it all Saturday. The guy was nice enough to tell me of an upcoming sale with 40%off all paints. So I had it mixed up and waited to pick it up one week later when the sale was on. The only trick after that was keeping the deck clean for a week after all that hard scrubbing. It stayed pretty clean but on Friday I had Cameron power wash it off just get the last of the dirt off.

On to the good part, pictures...

 Here is a before. It looked so horrible!

 The boys earned some play money by helping.

Before and Afters:

 Before

 After. I had it color matched to Behr's "Mossy Oak". We are going to paint our house the same color soon. Its a little darker and warmer than what is on their now.

 Before

 After

 Before

 After

 

Before

 After. You can see the test color on the house. 

 Before

 After

I don't know how we lasted so long the way it was. Cameron was sitting behind me on the couch as I was uploading these pictures and saying how disgusting it looked. He was so used to it, he didn't notice how bad it was. I was like yeah, we had a birthday party for Kian and had people over and it looked like that. And he was like "oh nooo!"

I'm kind of glad he realized that, because I'm always the only one who is embarrassed about the condition of the house! Only 247 projects to go until it's not embarrassing anymore :)

And it was all yellow

I've been waiting until the perfect painting weather came along to paint our front door. A few weeks ago, it was time! I normally would try 5 swatches of paint to test but I knew I wanted yellow and I not a super bright yellow. I went with more of a buttercream yellow that I saw on the "Exterior House Colors" book for Behr at Home Depot.

We took the door off and I painted over the previous blue color with four thin coats. The we flipped it over and painted the other side too. It was at this point that I started to freak out because it was way too light. Cam told me to wait till we got it reattached to the door then decide if we need to get a darker yellow (more like a gold). It actually got too cold and the paint wouldn't dry as fast as we needed to get the door back on so we could sleep. Consequently, we moved the door into the garage and I blow dried it dry, then added the last coat.

Cam put the door on and that was a whole other story. Long story short, the door is steel and when he had it propped up against the wall it tipped over and feel into the opposite wall leaving a HUGE hole in the sheet rock and chipping the light switch. We patched it up but you can still see it in the photos.

 Here's the interior door with old floors and baseboards

 Here it is new baseboards and door trim. 

And here is the after. I ended up liking the color on the interior. The color is called "Early Harvest" by Behr. We just spray painted door knob, lock, and hinges and oil rubbed bronze.

 Here's the exterior right before painting.

And here it is now. Cam was right, once we got it up the color looked darker and better with the house than I thought. Whew. I love it now!

Living and dining area is all painted!

We are breathing a huge sigh of relief, mixed with excitement. Another project is done!!! We painted the walls Benjamin Moore Horizon. The room looks and feels so much better now.

A before picture

After

Much brighter and happier! I'm still working on getting furniture moved back in. More on that and decorating soon!

Bedroom progress

I finished touching up, priming, and painting the bedroom ceiling. It ended up being a lot more work than expected because we got the ceiling a little too wet and when we scraped it damaged some of the drywall. But its all good because we have lots more ceiling to practice on.

Before

Progress

You can't tell too much but we also painted the walls and Cameron replaced the yellow electrical switches for white ones. We still have lots of work to finish eventually in here--for one, I can't wait to get rid of all the orange oak that goes throughout the house!