Painting the Exterior of the House

Last week was CRA-zy...I actually had projects to post about, and not enough time to post them! Sorry about going MIA.

So now, where were we? Oh yes, I left you last week with a pretty picture of our new blue exterior lights, and a not so pretty picture of my work in progress with getting the back part of the house painted.

This weekend Chris leaned the ladder against the house and finished up edging out the top of this area, while I got on the roof with my paintbrush and paint, and hung over to get the trim.

After that, Chris got up on our 8 ft step ladder and rolled with the extension brush, while I was on paint roller duty and filled the roller when he ran out of paint.  There were a whole lot less up and down's that way!

We made pretty good progress this way and managed to finish up the rest of this in an afternoon.  Here's the finished product as the sun was setting:

Just because everyone loves a good before and after...before:

After:

New house paint, trim paint, removed useless satellite dish, painted light fixtures blue.

Pool pavers arrived on our driveway Friday, and they're scheduled to start laying the new pool deck pavers today.  Good Bye pretty in pink pool deck!  We are both beyond excited.  Stay tuned to see the progress unfold throughout the week.  It's pool paver week!  Woo Hoo!!!

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Blue Magic : Exterior Lighting

What a weekend. I'm exhausted, and it's only Monday!

There's one more area that needs to get painted before the pool paver guys arrival in ONE week (woo hoo!).

On a side note, as I was looking through these pictures picking one for this post, I couldn't help but laugh at Kodi.  In everyone he's making some sort of funny expression.  I don't even think I realized he was in the shot when I took it.  Goofy dog...he's such a camera ham!

Chris and I thought this area would be pretty easy.  A little bit of trim work, roll, and wala.  Or not.  We had to take off the satellite dish that hasn't been used in who knows how long, and since the previous owners painted most of the boxes and wiring (most of it's for the pool equipment), we had to too.  Oiy.

Friday night we took down the satellite dish and Chris pressure washed.  This side was diiir-ty.  I had to let it dry all day Saturday, so it was Sunday before I could get started out here.

Sunday morning I got up and trimmed as much as my 5'7 self could (holy highness!).  I decided while painting all of the equipment boxes and wiring that I wanted to do something different for those outside lights.  We want to replace them eventually, but there's a loooong list of things to buy, and these don't quite rank at the top, so I wanted to add a little pop of color to the lighting in the meantime.

Heelllooo Krylon Spray Paint in Blue Ocean Breeze.

I just removed the jar, lightbulb, and sprayed a few light coats of the blue on the lighting.

And then painted around it with my Sandstone Cove while I was edging.

Oh, you want to see how it looks with the new paint job for the house?!

Well, me too...but Chris did school work ALL DAY Sunday, and I'm only 5'7, so I only could paint up to a certain height before having to call it quits.  I'm pretty positive and confident that I can do anything.  The problem is I'm also clumsy and accident prone, so me up on a ladder that's leaning against the house trying to finish getting this trim just wouldn't be smart.  I got as much as I could with our 8 ft ladder.

Our neighbors are probably thinking 'what the hey?!?!'  Eh, maybe we'll finish it up sometime this week.  But till then...you can admire my pretty new blue light.

Just the pop of color I was looking for!  Hope everyone had a great weekend.  Happy Monday!

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Painting the Pool Deck Ledge

One of the issues that we know we're going to have once the pool paver guys get here and start installing is our ledge where the sliding glass door is. With the new height of the pavers and the tininess of the ledge, putting an actual paver there will be next to impossible.

Of course we're not leaving the ledge pink, however. We fully intend on covering any and all evidence that we, once upon a time, had a pink pool deck. Our hopes is that it will be a far, far, distant memory before too long!

I'm a DIY'er, and because my entire family knows that, last time we were visiting my Dad, he offered up a bunch of old paint that he found when he cleaned the garage.  I think it was either I took it, or it went to the garbage.  Just because something is old and rusty on the outside, doesn't mean that it's not perfectly good on the inside!!  Sheesh...don't judge a book by its cover, right?!

Anywho...Chris thought I was crazy for taking all of the paint and wanted to throw away about 95% of it as soon as we got home, but agreed to let it stay because I have my painting bookshelf that I can put it all in.

I initially used the paint from painting the house to paint a few steps, and then remembered that I had seen some gray porch paint in the mix my Dad gave to me, so I went and got that also, and did a side by side comparison of the two colors.

We put the paver's up to each color and decided the gray fit the coloration better, and would probably hold up better outside in the long run, so I got busy painting the rest of the ledge gray.

Yes, it's normal for me to have multiple paint colors on my body during any house painting project.  I'm actually super clean, for me, in this picture!

Instead of being excited when I got done with a couple of coats of the gray, my paint job just felt ... a little flat.

So, I put my noggin to use, and remembered that we had a little bit of brown porch paint left from painting the floor in the daybed room, and had an AHA moment.  I could dry paint some of the brown paint lightly over the gray paint to bring out a little more depth and dimension.  I didn't know if this would really work, so I don't have any pictures of the during, sorry!

I took my paint brush, dipped it in the brown floor paint, and then removed as much of the paint as possible off the brush, using an old shirt and some paper towels to ensure there really wasn't excess paint left.  I then wiped my now barely wet paint brush quickly back and forth across the steps, and wound up with this:

Minus Kodi's hair that I forgot to wipe off before taking the picture, I was so much happier with it!

The paver's next to the gray color of the steps re-affirmed my decision with the dry-brushing.

 Please ignore the dirt and dog hair.  It is an outside pool deck area, after all!

Once they lay the base layer down to even out the deck, these paver's will be pretty close to flush with the ledge.

Only two more weekends of prepping and painting left before they start!  And they're supposed to be done in one week.  I'm so excited...it so makes all of the trips up and down the ladder, back aches, and shoulder aches worth it!

Happy Friday everyone.  Hope you guys have a great weekend!

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