This is going to be my biggest project to date. In full transparency, I’m completely terrified to take this on. But you know what they say, do it scared. So that’s what I’m doing!
Let me show you the before of the house. Brown. Very, very brown.
Last time I painted (lime washed) a house it felt much less daunting. Our home in Arkansas was a one story rambler and most of the exterior walls were only about 8’ tall. Our current house is two stories with a section on the top floor – over our primary bedroom – that is vaulted. Eeek.
Luckily, this time I’m going to be using a paint sprayer instead of painting the whole thing by hand, so at least I’ve got that going for me! I am racing the weather, though. Before Jordan and I left on our trip to Paris, I wasn’t worried about the timeline too much. I knew it was tight, but figured I’d be fine because we’ve had an unseasonably warm autumn… until now. As I write this it’s snowing outside my window, so I’ve had to adjust my expectations slightly! You can’t paint when it gets cold because the paint won’t cure correctly.
So instead of painting the whole house right now, I’m going to start by painting just the front. Then in the spring when I have warm weather for longer, I’ll paint the rest of the exterior!
Without further adieu, here is the plan!
- Paint color : I have always loved a classic, white house! After all, that’s what I did to our last home’s exterior. But with this home, I think I want to do a light gray. Super light gray! I still need to narrow down the exact color, but I think a really, really light gray is going to look really pretty on this house.
- Stucco : There is a small amount of stucco on the front to work with right now, but the other 3 sides of the house are entirely stucco. This is by far the most intimidating part for me and I’ve been doing a ton of research to make sure that I use the right paint for the job!
- Hardie board siding & shingles : Most of the front of the house is this. This doesn’t seem nearly as intimidating to me. Stucco needs to breathe or the paint will peel, but painting siding seems a lot more straightforward.
- Stone : Currently the stone is very warm (in fact it’s almost pinkish in some places) and it will clash with the new paint color if I don’t do something about it! So I’m planning to use limewash to give it a cooler tone.
- Trim : I am still going back and forth on whether or not I want the trim around the windows to be a different color than the rest of the house. If I do paint the trim, I’d do it white – so just slightly lighter than the rest of the house. What do you think? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
- Gutters : The gutters are staying the same color, they’ll just get a good power washing to refresh them.
- Door : I painted this door about a year ago because I couldn’t handle the bright mint color it was before! I felt pretty limited with what I could do with the brown house, but now I think I’ll paint it again and make it a deep charcoal.
I cannot wait to tackle this project – even though I’m absolutely terrified at the same time! And just imagine it all lit up and decorated for Christmas!! Be sure to follow along on Instagram to watch the process!
With love,
Mercedes 🖤
With Love, Mercedes 