A new coat of paint

The wife and I have been in our home for a little over four years. We haven't made many improvements yet. Time, money, laziness, bla, bla, bla... About all we have done so far is paint the inside, put in a back lawn and sprinkler system, and various small maintenance tasks. Of course there is a long list in our minds of things we could do to spiff up the place - new flooring and carpet, kitchen remodel, new driveway and walkways, tile the patio, etc.

So we decided to tackle one of those items this weekend/week. The wife has always disliked the color of our house. Beyond the look, the paint was not in very good shape. Running your hand down the wall you would come away covered in chalky yellow paint. And the weather forecast called for a week of dry weather, so now was the time.

There is some decorative brick on the front of the house. I had originally planned on painting it to expand our color options and to create a little more modern look. At some point, I decided I wanted to leave the brick alone and different house colors started coming to mind. When we finally decided on a color, it turns out it is one of the more difficult to work with. The friendly paint person at Home Depot told me that she has had people put up to 8 coats on before it turned out right. You also need to use a special color primer to prep the house.

So anyway, we have primer and two coats of paint on the home, and two coats of primer on the trim areas. We are doing it all by hand. A sprayer seemed more trouble that it was worth, plus the added expense. Now I'm not so sure. One thing for sure - I don't want to be a house painter.

Though it will be a while before we are done, we wanted to pass along our progress. We also wanted to show our friends what we gave up camping for this past weekend.



We had a few neighbors say they liked the primer color. Not sure how serious they were, but it was definitely a conversation starter.