From Bland to Bold Exterior Paint

Painting the exterior of a house is a big decision, y'all!

Unfortunately, the siding of our house is Masonite (basically, compressed particle board) so if we don't keep up with painting it every seven or so years, the nail heads pucker in and cause water damage and rot.  It's a super cheap material, which is why builders used it in the 80's and 90's.  Nowadays, it is replaced with Hardiplank or cement siding.  We will have to replace siding as it fails but we can't afford to do it all at once, so for now a fresh paint job will have to do the trick (it was overdue when we bought it).

Nothing is necessarily wrong with our current color scheme (putty color with light blue shutters and cream trim) except that our new windows (white vinyl) don't match the dated cream trim.  Also, the muted color of the house just kind of blends into the scenery with all our trees.  We're still young(ish) so if we're going to brighten it up, now is the time.

We considered just about every color of the rainbow since we've seen houses that we like in basically every shade.  Red looks great on cottages, and yellow on Victorians, grays and tans are nice on traditional homes, but our house is a weird hybrid with gables, a bay window, and chippendale railings.

We decided that blue would be a good choice since it goes well with the brick, gray roof, and eventually white trim.  I don't quite feel like I've lived in the place long enough for me to want to change it, but since we're paying to have it painted, we wanted to do something different.  I could have used more time to make a decision but unfortunately the house couldn't wait any longer, so neither could our decision.

The blues in the photo above don't look all that different, but they are.  We went with the more true blue (Georgian Blue by Sherwin Williams) which is the last color on the right.  It will be in satin finish which is slightly more durable than flat and the trim will be updated to a crisp pure white.  It's going up on the house as I write and it's going to be drastic.

Big change is scary for an indecisive Libra, but I do think when it's all finished the house will look a lot newer and will actually look bigger.  The white trim will be beautiful and go much better with the blue, so I can't wait for that.  Stayed tuned for some crazy before and after pics probably sometime next week.  In the meantime, I'll try not to get scared by all these bold changes.  Farwell old house.