As if all the blue and mauve trim on the inside of the house isn’t enough, we had some outside trim that needed some attention. When we bought this house we knew we had four major things to deal with: the roof and the furnace, a few bad trees, and this last bear: some rotting areas of siding and trim that needed to be replaced along with a fresh paint job for the whole house. But at least we knew about all of them going into the house purchase (and the first two didn’t end up draining our wallets) – so maybe that softened the blow a little? Speaking of soft, I give you… our siding.
This hole was big enough for a bat or a mouse to crawl in. I’ll pause while you ewwww for a second.
Some of the wood trim and siding just couldn’t be salvaged and would need to be completely replaced. And the rest of it was in desperate need of a cleaning, scraping, priming, and two fresh coats of paint to protect it from rotting like the other stuff that was already too far gone. Given the extent of the rot, the sheer size of the project, and the fact that a lot of it was high off the ground, we knew it was a job for the pros. So we got four estimates and ultimately chose the crew that made us feel the most confident, who was a local chain called Certa Pro Painters. It didn’t hurt that they were recommended by a neighbor up the street along with a wish-she-was-our-neighbor friend of ours. They also were the most flexible (which enabled us to save an extra 1k by doing some things ourselves, but more on that later).
After picking who to go with, it was color picking time. We decided that we wanted the trim to be one color and the siding to be another color, just so the house had a little more dimension. We didn’t hate the existing cream on cream trim and siding, but we did love a few other possibilities more, especially after walking around the neighborhood and staring at other brick colonials to see what they had going on. So after a whole lotta house-gawking, we came home and stared at our paint deck.
We decided we liked the idea of a putty color (not too brown, and not too gray – sort of right in the middle) since that tone is kind of “related” to the brick, so it ties in. We waffled back and forth between the two colors with the red arrow in that top swatch for a while and finally settled on the lighter one because we worried the darker one might be gloomy for the siding. Then for the windowsills and trim we picked a nice not-too-yellow-and-not-too-blue white tone.
Spoiler alert: we picked the wrong color and should have gone with the darker one for the siding. But thankfully we caught it early enough (just as the first coat was starting to go up) that they were happy to apply the darker tone as the second coat, which had great coverage since it was only a shade darker. So this is the final choice. Pretty, right?
It’s such a rich look, and because the brick is such a visually “weighty” color, it’s a really nice balance. The lighter color was so washed out it almost still looked cream – or even like a soft white. So… disaster averted!
See how the triangle over the portico looks like it’s a soft whispy white-ish color? That was just one square lighter on that swatch (yet it looked about three shades lighter when the light hit it!). You can see Danny applying the final color right over it, which really helped the white trim pop more while holding its own with the strong brick and the dark shutters behind it. Whew.
The process was actually pretty fun to watch (we didn’t envy them for a second up on those crazy ladders for five days in 90+ degree temperatures). The first step was power-washing the entire house, then they scraped the trim and siding before priming anything that was raw wood, and painting everything (two coats for the siding and trim, and one coat around the windows since they were just going from cream to white). If the wood/siding was in bad shape, they cut it out and replaced it. In the end, they had cut out and repaired about 20 pieces of rotten siding and trim, so it broke down to one day of power washing, two days of rot repair and scraping, and two days of priming/painting.
As for the paint, they used Duration by Sherwin Williams, which they said was awesome for the exterior and had really nice thick coverage (so we’re glad our house won’t be all sad and rotten again anytime soon). The colors we ended up going with were Snowbound (for the white trim) and Anonymous (for the putty colored siding).
We’re so happy with it. And we’ll never doubt those house painting tipsters again when that say “go a shade darker than you think for the exterior of a house since the light that hits it will wash things out.” We really thought we could just look at the swatches outside, but it was crazy how light/white that very clearly gray-brown swatch looked once it was up on the house! Three cheers for second chances. Oh man, we’re so thankful.
Here’s what the house looked like when we got it:
And here it is (a little closer) now. More dimensional, right? So much less… brown.
The new roof was definitely a game changer, but the fresh paint is a pretty noticeable upgrade too. Even just the white trim around the windows and the porch railing feels nice and fresh from the curb. It’s one of those things when we drive down the street to come home we’re still doing that double take since our brains are taking a second to catch up with the current look.
Here’s the back before, which we thought made the siding part on the top right look a little too light and unbalanced (gah, choppy photo, sorry!):
Now it just feels more evenly weighted, so it sticks out less and looks more integrated.
And here’s a closer shot that shows how the sunroom looked when it was all cream before.
Now it has a crisper feeling, and the dark storm windows on the house tie into the dark tones in the brick as well as the putty color in the siding – so the sunroom feels more tied in and less like a little add-on-pop-out in the back.
When it comes to the cost of rot repair/house painting, that definitely varies depending on where you live, how much rot you have, what type of house it is (mostly brick or all siding), how large your house is, etc. The receipt’s in one of our moving chaos piles (aka: lost in the Bermuda Triangle) but I think it was around 1K for all of the wood rot repair and over 2K for the scraping and painting. Update: Just remembered we got 10% off because John’s a member of ACAC, so any locals getting an estimate should show their membership card if they have one!
Writing the check was another one of those bleeding money moments, but we were able to knock 1K off their original estimate by offering to DIY some easier-to-reach spots ourselves that we had faith we could do well. So here’s a tip for anyone who loves tackling what they can while leaving the stuff that’s out of their league to the experts: just break it all down in your head and see what you think you can bite off. We said “hey, we’ll gladly paint three areas ourselves!” which are: the garage doors (we think we’ll go a tone darker than the siding with those)…
… the interior walls, trim, and ceiling of the sunroom (everyone quoted that since it’s technically an outdoor room), and the front door and sidelights.
Not only did that save us a cool grand, it means we have more time to think about what colors we want in those areas. Predictably, I’m the most excited about a new front door color. Nothing’s off limits. Seriously, every swatch in the rainbow is in the running.
One roof-related casualty did occur when we accidentally ran over a screw that had landed in our driveway, but thankfully it was only a $29 fix (we could get it patched instead of replacing it) so all’s well that ends well.
Oh home improvement. You take our money and sometimes you even flatten our tires, but we keep crawling back.
Looks awesome! Thanks for sharing!
Looks great! I’m comforted that you picked a similar color scheme to my own house (which we didn’t re-face). I think once our roof gets redone from it’s current brown (to match the old vertical cedar siding) to something that will better work with the slate siding and red brick things will be better.
It looks really good, but holy crap, you guys are bleeding money!!
Can’t. Stand. Up. Too. Dizzy. Lost. Too. Much. Blood.
Thankfully this is the last big thing of the four that we knew we’d have to handle when we bought the house, so here’s hoping it’s just peeling wallpaper and painting trim and hanging art for a while while our savings account recovers!
xo
s
It looks awesome! The new roof and paint colour make a huge difference compared to the “before” photos.
It looks great! Can’t wait to see what color you choose for the front door!
Great tip to negotiate some “do it yourself” into the price. I’m hoping like any good Wahoo John has some outdoor painting experience from Beta Bridge. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugby_Road#Beta_Bridge
Oh yes he does!
xo
s
Looks great! It’s hard for me (a cheapo DIYer) to admit when something is beyond my ability to DIY, so I’m wondering if you have the same problem…. did you ever consider trying to do that project yourself? I probably would have started it and then realized I was in over my head (when I was hanging off a ladder 12 feet in the air!).
Can’t wait to see what color those doors become.
We debated a bunch of possibilities for about an hour, just chatting about pros and cons, but we realized that doing it ourselves would most likely necessitate a solid week of 8+ hour days spent outside on ladders with someone watching Clara while we completely ignored the blog for that entire time. That’s just not possible for us, so we decided to bite off what we could to save money (sunroom, garage, front door) and get the best price/team that we could for the rest. It really helped that we got that free furnace from our home warranty because although it sucked to write the check for the house painting, we bought this house thinking we’d have to pay for a furnace from our own account as well, so that made it sting a bit less I think :)
xo
s
It looks great! I can’t wait to see what color you choose for the front door! It’s always so hard to narrow it down – especially when you have pretty neutral colors to begin with since it doesn’t knock any of the colors out automatically!
I love it! It looks great. No bats for you guys. *heebie jeebies* Sorry about the tire though. Glad a patch was all it needed!
Can’t wait to see what color wins the 2013 Petersik Door Beauty Contest!
Ohhhhhh posts like this make me wish so bad we weren’t renters. We currently live in a house where the inside was nicely up-kept and remodeled, but the outside needs help. BADLY. We’ve got warped siding, rotting wood, peeling paint, the trim has come off due to past termite damage in some areas, its just bad. And sadly our home is not the only one I see like that, we’re in the rental majority when it comes to repairs like that needing to be done. Makes me sad that the homeowners here don’t realize how much of an impression the outside of your home makes. Not to mention that having to constantly spray that warped siding with wasp nest killer gets pretty dang old.
Love!
Any plans for the front door and shutters one day? They look good now, but I was curious if you guys had something up your sleeve. :)
Oh yes, in the post we mention how I’ll be painting the front door and sidelights (we negotiated money off by doing some things ourselves). I think we like the black shutters for now but you never know…
xo
s
Oh Duh! I saw the garage doors and sunroom stuff but missed the front door. Looking forward to seeing the door being finished up.
I’m excited to see your home process from the start since I began reading your blog only a year and a half ago, I didn’t get to see your last house when you moved in. (Well I did a bit from stalking the older posts :D )
Thanks so much Mandy!
xo
s
I love that shot of the sunroom! The new paint job makes it look really snazzy :)
I really like how the two tones on the side of the sunroom. Makes the architecture more architecture-y, you know?
And I can’t get over how much I love your porch railings. Lovelove.
Truthfully I think you need a new front door. Something with more beveled glass, so the sun can reach the foyer. However, if that is not an option, I would just match the color to the color of the shutters. You don’t want it to stand out too much with say, a lavender door….
I’d be surprised if they actually don’t want it to stand out, considering the bright yellow door at the last house. Personally I’m not a fan of the door matching the shutters at all, I think it looks dated and too matchy-matchy, especially with any kind of a neutral color. Bring on the lavender! My front door will be fire engine red or lavender one day, I think that’s the first thing I’m going to do when I buy my first house.
I love the color change!
Reducing the scope of a job is definitely a great way to save a few bucks. I’ve done that w/landscaping in the past – they did the ‘heavy lifting’ (shrub removal) and I managed the regular stuff (mowing & weeding).
Looks great! Our home is mostly brick veneer and we’re going to repaint the outside too. Luckily there is very little to paint and we’ll just do it ourselves, but it’s nice to see the result of a greyish color against red brick.
Do you plan on painting the shutters or will you leave them black?
I think for now we like them black (they tie in with tones in the roof and the dark storm windows) but we’ll have to see where we end up!
xo
s
I wish I had known to go a shade darker with exterior colors. Where were you guys when I was getting new siding?!? My siding looks white during the day but calms down to a nice greige in the evening.. I would definitely go a bit darker if I were to do it again. House looks great by the way! The new colors definitely make the exterior look more lush :)
Looks great. We just bought a colonial in a very wooded lot. It’s two different shades of green and just seems so dark. You’ve inspired us to brighten things up.
Planning on changing the shutter color later down the road? ( I like it, just curious)
I think for now we like the black shutters but you never know where we’ll end up!
xo
s
Love the color choices you made, they make the brick look that much richer. Just when I think your new home couldn’t get any lovelier, it does! Can’t wait to see what’s next….
Awwww! She’s already looking so loved!! :)
Looks great! It’s amazing what a simple coat of paint can do to transform the feel of an older home into something updated, crisp, and clean. Can’t wait to see what you do with the door–it’s just CRYING OUT to be painted!
Looking good! We always use Sherwin-Williams Paint (no BM paint store in our area) and have been very happy with it. Smart choice to have others paint it. I painted our house one summer, took a long time since we decided to brush it on so we didn’t want to deal with overspray since the neighbor’s house is fairly close. My hubby was working six days a week at the time so my weekends were spent with paintbrush in hand and he did the eaves and such on his day off. Still looking good six year’s later although I do want to change the paint color on the front door but haven’t decided what color to use. Decisions, decisions!
Woah, you’re a champion Angela! That’s amazing!
xo
s
The portico picture reminds me of a house not too far from us that is painted in a gradient in very similar colors. It’s subtle, just one part, and stands out in a wonderful way.
I would never have strayed from white but when Katie B. did it and now with you guys going gray (not the hair, of course), I am totally rethinking things. I can’t believe the difference it made on both the Bower’s house and yours!
Love the color! You guys have done more in these couple of weeks than we have in 3 years. You are just moving right along!
just beautiful! neutral and classic….you’ll love it just as much in 20 years as you do now!
Oh man, here’s hoping!
xo
s
Wow! What a great improvement. It must be a piece of mind too since those types of problems you have to tackle right away. Nice save on the color choice too!
Oh yes, we finally feel like the bleeding money thing is wrapping up. With the four big things checked off we can go back to peeling wallpaper and painting rooms and hanging art and all of those easier/cheaper things while our wallets recover :)
xo
s
I KNEW that color looked familiar! I recently bought my first home and the master bedroom walls (AND ceiling) were painted this awful golden yellow color. I could never sleep in a bright yellow room. I painted the ceiling white and the walls with Anonymous – it’s so soothing in there now. As soon as I saw Anonymous at the store, I knew that was the perfect color I was looking for :)
So funny! I bet it’s really cozy in a bedroom!
xo
s
I love the new colors and it really makes me want to paint the outside of the sun room on our all brick house as well. I honestly had never thought of doing that!
Question, when you were looking at the house did you discuss if and/or when tuck pointing the brickwork would be necessary? I don’t believe we need tuck pointing yet, but I’m curious if it something you guys have discussed and are trying to determine if that will be necessary for you down the line.
We didn’t need any tuck pointing (thank goodness! I hear that’s a lot of work!) so we didn’t chat about it. Anyone have tips for Laura on that subject?
xo
s
You need pointing if the morter is crumbling when you scrape it. Usually you also start getting water seeping into walls about that point. It is incredibly expensive since removing and replacing the morter all has to be done by hand as to not damage the brick. Luckily pointing is a once every 50 year type thing.
Oooh, I love it! The dark colour looks good! I can’t wait to see what you choose for the front door and garage doors! I’m oddly excited for this. I love doors. I am weird. What colour is your favourite so far for the door? Are tou staying away from red and yellow because You have already had doors those colours? Anyways random question, do you guys have the store Home Outfitters? I’m sure you do I just am having a brain cramp.
:)
I don’t think we have Home Outfitters, I’ll have to look for it! As for the door, we’ve considered every and any color. We’re not going to force ourselves to do something different if yellow or red are the favorite swatches, but we also love the idea of emerald or robin’s egg blue or plum…
xo
s
Home Outfitters is a Canadian store, under the umbrella The Hudson’s Bay Company AKA The Bay.
I love the idea of plum! I recently painted my front and back doors Purple Fury by Valspar and I LOVE them!!
Here they are on my instagram http://instagram.com/p/ZMEOronJt5/
Pretty!
xo
s
We also have a two-story brick with black shutters and a grey roof, and I’m thinking of painting the front door a fresh spring green. (Lighter than emerald, but not kelly; wish I could think of a comparison!) I think it will also look nice during the holidays as an alternative to the deep greens. Can’t wait to see where you end up!
Looks great! I think you guys should go for a purple/plum front door – it looks amazing with brick!
I’m seriously falling in love with your house. Yes, in the creepiest way possible. Can’t wait to see what you do next!! (and the front door…you’re killin me smalls!)
A
I like how you clarified it’s the creepiest way possible. Is there any other way to be?
xo
s
Looks great! Is your driveway gravel?
Yup, some dirt and some weeds and some gravel. Haha!
xo
s
I’m assuming your inspecter did a thorough job looking into those huge holes to make sure there were no critters in there? (especially bats.) We’re still traumatized from the 12-25 bats we had living in our attic last year that we didn’t know about (the inspecter missed it). Did you know that a bat can fit through a hole the size of a dime? A DIME. yuck.
Oh yes, thankfully we didn’t have any critter issues except for a possum in the crawl space. That was exciting for a little while…
xo
s
Beautiful. What a difference. The house looks all loved now…I bet the neighbors are appreciating that!
I’ll anxiously await the garage door painting tutorial. You guys got me all excited to paint the house doors…and then I realized the doors, shutters are garage doors are all the same (no so great) color…oye. Maybe you’ll inspire me again!
I am totally in love with the colors you chose! It’s funny how the fresh siding and trim paint make your brick look fresh and new… looks like they were cleaned too. I am debating colors for my house trim as well… and have been for over a year. Picking outside colors to go with brick is way harder than picking interior colors. Nice job!
My living room is painted Anonymous. I think it’s the perfect dark grey.
Ooh I bet inside it’s really moody and awesome.
xo
s
$29 to patch a tire? Discount Tires patches tires for free here in AZ.
I never knew those little windows/area on either side of the front door were called sidelights. My front door has one sidelight on the right side with 5 little windows. I never knew what to call it before!
I just can’t get over the amount of work that you guys have done. The house has been neglected for a long time, and in a few months with you…bam! Looks wonderful.
Our 80ish year old house is all wood siding and 5 years ago we scraped and repainted the whole thing. It sucked. Majorly. I still have nightmares about it. We should have gotten estimates but just did it all ourselves (with free help from family). We swear we are never buying a wood-sided house again (although getting to change the col
Dang trying to comment from my phone…
Getting to change the color was the only good part. We went from a yucky yellow to a sorta greyish blue which looks much much better!!
Just an FYI for when you paint the garage doors – be careful to not get the paint behind the weatherseal around the top & sides of the opening. If paint gets behind the vinyl flap, it can dry/stick to the door and will affect the operation of the door. To clean it off the flap if it gets there, put the door up and use mineral spirits to remove the paint and any residue – yes, it’s stinky, but it’s necessary! I work for a garage door company, and we deal with customers with this problem at least once a month!
You can paint the weatherseal to match the doors, but it’s not that expensive to replace it. You should be able to find it at Lowe’s/Home Depot for about $1/ft. If you decide to replace it, then the best course of action is to remove the trim, paint the doors, let them get good & dry, then install the new weatherseal. This way, no worries about getting paint where it will cause troubles!
Sorry for being totally off topic! (I do love the new paint though!)
Thanks so much for the tip Daves! So smart!
xo
s
Oh my gosh, looks great guys! I.can’t.wait. for you to pick a door color! Although, if you’re anything like me, you’ll wait six months to be toooootally sure you picked the right color, wait two more months, and then think some more about actually painting it… Haha or maybe just don’t be like me :) Sometimes it’s hard to make the decisions you feel will have a really big impact (when in reality, it’s just paint, and if you hate it, you can paint it again…). But the siding looks awesome :) Thanks for sharing!
I think the key for the door will be getting test pots of paint so I can do big swatches and look at them from the street and at all times of day. Might be less scary than a swatch (since that did us wrong on the house color!).
xo
s
Just be careful, Sherry–don’t forget the patchwork of swatches in the old dining room for months. You don’t want a patchwork front door! LOL
Haha, it’s true!
xo
s
I hear you’ve already painted the door (turquoise). Why the charade of future tense?
When we wrote this post the door hadn’t been started yet, hence the future tense. And we’ve learned that it’s confusing (and considered “teasing”) when we mention other things in the comments instead of just waiting to reveal them in the post when we’re done and have photos to share. We’re the first to admit that the things we do can’t hit the blog the second we do them. The door post is on the agenda for next week assuming we get photos after all this rain passes :)
xo
s
Oh My: why so spoiler-y? I’m sure it’s strange for John and Sherry to be commenting in accordance with the time frame of the blog rather than the time frame within which things happen in real life. But Sherry is right. I’m sure lots of people don’t have time to read all the comments, and it gets weird when information in the comments gets ahead of the actual blog posts. Just let things unfold (or at least let them unfold for the rest of us). And speaking of weird, I’m oddly bummed that the color reveal got spoiled!
Love the darker shade! Spending money on a new house can be tough, both mentally and on your wallet, but it is so worth it to do the big projects early on so that way you can enjoy the benefits right from the start! One of my biggest house regrets happens when we wait too long to do a project, and then only do it before moving so someone else gets to enjoy the benefits instead of us!
Agreed! It’s so funny how when you’re selling you’re like “my house has never looked better or been in better shape – and I’m leaving…”
xo
s
Do I spy old curtains still hanging in the garage windows?? :-P
Oh my gosh yes, those are gone now! Haha! We kept forgetting to take them down!
xo
s
Looks amazing! Painting the sunroom trim white really makes all the details stand out. The curves at the top by the gutter and the lattice-type detail on the walls really look amazing. So jealous of this house, guys. In a good way. :)
WOW!! What a difference…. Love it!! I can’t wait to see what flavor you paint the door. A turquoisy (sp) color? :)
Another fun one!
xo
s
It looks SO good! And the color you ended up going with is the color of my living room. :)
It looks great! How did it feel to have the painting done for you?! (With the whole money-factor set aside.)
We just couldn’t believe how much work it was! Five days with two guys (occasionally a third guy came along) working at once! It would have taken us forever to carve out that time, and they did an awesome job. Other than writing the check it felt awesome! Haha.
xo
s
Love the color, especially in that shot of the sunroom, it’s so crisp and pretty against the white. And it will be much better than that cream for not showing inevitable dirt and grime!