What to do first?

When we looked around our new home we tried to decide from our long list what we should do first.

There was nothing majorly wrong with the house, just some minor things needed to happen. This house had not been lived in for at least the past two years. The previous owners would visit now and then, but that was about it. A house needs to be lived in or things just start to go wrong. Or things just aren't taken care of the way they should have been.

Since it was the end of summer when we moved in, we decided that the outside should be worked on first. Then the inside items would get attention when it was too cold to work outside any more.

This house hadn't been painted since it was built in 1999. You could start to see places where the paint was peeling and wearing off. We had different options, we could put new siding on. Possibly vinyl siding and never have to worry about painting it again. Or we could paint it and then again in about 10 years need to paint again. The idea of siding didn't appeal to me. You are stuck with that color forever. What if I didn't want the house to always be white, or green, or whatever color we picked? And painting is quite a bit cheaper. We chose to paint. And since we were painting I was definitely NOT going to pick white. White is boring. It looks nice, but it's just boring. And to me this house was screaming I NEED TO BE YELLOW!!

I didn't know how hard it was going to be to pick a simple primary color! The first color I had picked was an interior paint. That wouldn't work. Then while talking with the paint store guys I came to realize that certain yellows would fade out to white in just a couple of years, if not months. Not good there, either. So I started looking again. Luckily the color I liked was on a brochure. Sherwin Williams had it as an example house and it was exactly what I was imagining in my head! If it was good enough for their example it was good enough for me!

I bought a sample can to make sure I wanted that color. I went home and painted a section on the back of my house so that I could go out at different times of the day and see if it was the color I wanted.

I/we determined that Humble Gold was the chosen color! And we were going with it. Shutters would be Caviar (black, obviously), and the front and back doors were going to be Salute (which is a red).  I love paint names, they are so funny.

We got the OK from the HOA and we found a painting crew we could afford. We decided to have someone else paint it instead of us doing it ourselves. They would be done in a couple of weeks with something that would have taken us the rest of the summer and into the next. Plus, they would do a much better job of it.

I'm really glad we had someone else do the work. They took more time than I would have into getting it clean. The shutters had to be removed, and that hadn't happened since it was built about 10 years ago.

They were filthy underneath. After watching them power wash my house I was glad we had them do it.

After posting this picture I remembered something else we did before the painters came. See the little scallops there in the peak? Tyson installed those. Cute, huh? It was a little touch that Tyson thought of, and I really like it.

Once they started painting the weather turned for the worse, of course. What they thought would only take about a week and a half turned into almost three. It rained some, and that made it a day they couldn't paint, it turned to almost freezing temps, so that took things to a halt for a bit too. But they finally got it done!

I took pictures almost everyday at 10:30am, but I'll only post a few of them here so you can see the progress.

10-21~ Garage side started

 10-21~ road side started. This wall took them the longest since it was just painting and painting.

10-27~ The front is being started. The painters really wanted to get the front done so everyone who drove by could see the transformation even better. 

10-28~ Front and garage front done! All we need are the shutters put back on.

10-28~ Road side done. Now all the people taking their kids to school can see what is happening to our house. We have gotten so many people asking about it.  Great way to meet the neighbors!

10-28~ Shutters getting painted Caviar.

10-28~Silly painters. They were good guys who worked hard and were pretty enjoyable to have around the house all day long.

10-29~ I told the painters they needed to hurry and get my door done. The previous owners had it purple (who knows why) and with my yellow it made things look like an Easter basket.

10-29~ door painted, I feel so much better.

10-30~ I decided I wanted the backdoor the same and the front. Most people would have painted it white, but I spend more time in the back and I wanted another splash of color back there. I'm glad I did it.

10-30~ The shutters are on and now the front is complete! I love the new color of my new (to me) house!

11-2~ The back is done!

I'm glad we started with the painting of  the house. I can't believe what a color change can do for a place. And it's been easy to tell people where we live. All we have to say is the yellow house at the front of our subdivision and they know exactly which one. We have had many people tell us that they drive by our house to see what we are doing to it. Gotta love small towns.