Exterior House Painting

It seems like it’s been a long while since I shared any projects on here. Well, the first project of the summer is now in the books.

Exterior house painting. Check.

Why did we have our exterior painted? 1. We never loved our colors that much.

The last time we had our house painted, the HOA denied several paint combinations we submitted and we were left with our fourth choice. Oh well.

None of the colors in our HOA are all that great anyway.

2. A few better color combinations were approved and we were seeing homes in our community that we liked.

Nobody on our block has painted in a new palate recently, so we wanted to get a jump on an approval without competing with our neighbors.

3. Our paint was looking tired and we knew we’d be getting a letter from the HOA soon.

Painting outside when the temperature exceeds 100° is fruitless so we were at the end of the painting season. In fact the first day of painting reached about 96°.

Prep Work

The only thing our painters asked us to do was to remove the string lights from our back patio ceiling. I guess because there were so many.

That would not normally be a big deal, but hub is still recovering from shoulder surgery and cannot use his right arm.

And even with our tall ladder, I’m just not quite tall enough to reach the ceiling.

Why is everything so complicated?!

So I lugged the ladder around and held it securely while John climbed and used his left arm to unhook the lights. Then I gathered them together and got them out of the way.

For the record I am dead set against anyone over 40 years old on a ladder. It’s a very dangerous activity.

It’s been a few years since I cleaned the lights and boy were they filthy!

I brought a bucket of soapy water and a few rags outside and did a production line cleaning all the lights. John then coiled them and stored them away until better days when we can hang them back up.

The patio looks so fresh now!

Day 1

Day 1 the painters came and power washed the house. I cannot believe it only took them about an hour since it was so dirty. But they know what they’re doing.

There was some drama before they left because our neighbor, Angie, came over a little panicked after she found a snake in her backyard. I think the activity around power washing might have flushed the snake into her yard, but I’m not sure.

She called a local pest company who humanely remove and relocate snakes and a technician came right over. Turns out it was not a rattler, but Angie was happy to have it gone.

Day 2

Day 2 was repairing stucco, replacing the trim around the garage doors, taping and covering all the windows.

The house was so dark and the cats were so freaked out.

The painters were able to get most of the body of the house painted on Day 2. They worked so fast!

Day 3

Day 3 was the completion of the body, all the trim, shutters and clean up.

They were finished by 4 p.m.

I was so surprised because I didn’t think it was possible for them to get done so quickly.

Colors

In case you’re interested, the colors we selected are: Dunn Edwards Fine Grain (base), Dunn Edwards Cocoa Powder (trim and garage doors), Dunn Edwards Downing to Earth (shutters).

While we were selecting our paint colors, we visited our local DE store. We knew we wanted the light base color, but were not sure about the approved trim colors.

The folks at DE could not have been nicer to work with. They gave us plenty of paint sample cans so we could see the paint on our house in shade and sunlight.

Wrap Up

The house looks great from the inside. The first of three projects I want to share is finished.

Phew!

It seems like a quick and easy project from the back end, but let me tell you, it was weeks in the making and some stress by the time it got started.

Not to mention the poor cats.

A couple neighbors have texted me to tell me how nice the new color is. We are happy with it and happy we got approved for the color selection.

Here is a picture of the before color? What do you think?

As always, thank you for being here and God bless you and yours.