Painting The Exterior

I have been looking forward to this day since we moved in a little over a year ago, the big painting day.  Over the weekend we finally got the courage up and decided to make the big color choice decision and get started with painting our house exterior.  We are doing it all by ourselves (with some help from some wonderful friends and family) and boy is this a tedious task.  I knew this was not a small project but the time it is going to take to complete is huge. Our goal over the weekend was to complete one wall and we just about did (just a few little edges to fill in).  We absolutely love the result and I can't wait to show you!  But, before we can get there we have to share with you which color we chose and what we did to get ready for this big project.

Ok, so when we left off we had three color choices that we were looking at.  After weeks and weeks of looking at them we just weren't sold.  So off to Home Depot I went to grab a few more options and here is what we had:

From the beginning I really wanted a sage green color, then thought I wanted something dark or charcoal and in the end I think we chose something right in between...

We love it so much.  It's gray, green, even a little blue.  It's dark but not too dark and even hints at charcoal.  It's the perfect color choice for us.  In case you are wondering the color is called Valley Hills by Behr.  We also chose a creamy white, a darker color for the foundation and a new door color...those you will have to wait on.

The back of the house was our goal for the weekend but before we could even get painting we had a lot of prep work to do.  We needed a clean surface and after a little trial and error we finally found a good mix of tools that worked.  Like I said before, we have great family and friends that are helping us along the way - letting us borrow ladders, power washers, tools, etc.  They have saved us a ton of money and we are so thankful. We have two different sidings on our house (because of a later addition) so the power washer worked wonders on one siding but not the other.  But, a nice soaking of bleach cleaner and a little water from the hose and the rest cleaned up nicely.  

We removed every storm window and shutter and found some rotted wood along the way.  You can see in the picture above the rotted out soffits and also a little white trim that we had started (we just couldn't help it, we had to do a little painting to start with).

So say goodbye to the ugly outdated paint colors that once adorned our little house.  I'm not one bit sad to see it go.  

I feel like I have so much to share about this project, so get ready for an onslaught of painting exterior posts.  Tomorrow though, we have another Share Your Story and also I will be posting about my secret blogger swap that I participated in.  So, lots going on!!  Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend and thanks for stopping by!