Operation Paint the House Trim has begun!

Once my Mood Indigo show was hung, it’s been full steam ahead on our next home decorating project: Operation Paint the House Trim!! I’m stoked to be able to get rid of the faded 80s blue trim and hopefully make it look clean and fresh, without us actually painting the stucco, which is in good shape (but dirty). In some lights the stucco looks grey, in others it looks light blue.

painting-testing

I want to hopefully take the house to a grey and white scheme, reminiscent of New England. So the blue trim around the windows will go white, and the wood clapboards under the front windows and on the pillars will go a darker grey than the “gray” of the stucco. The folks at my local Benjamin Moore store were really great and suggested a few whites to try, and we quickly liked Brilliant White, and then tried one grey pictured above that was too blue. Luckily, the second grey (Platinum Gray) was a winner, and the plan started to come together.

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Then I hard to make more choices, because the door needs to be refinished or painted, the handleset needs replacing too because it’s mismatched and not working properly (we’d already replaced the one handle that works once with a Lowe’s Quickset brand I believe about 6 years ago, and the latch has not been working properly for a good year or two, so we’re going to go with a higher end brand in hopes that it has staying power) and the old brass and glass 1980’s style house numbers and lights were in dire need of replacement. So, after disappearing down a rabbit hole for a week here’s the plan!!!

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It feels great to have everything decided and ordered (except I just realized I need to find a black doorbell ringer thingy…). Andrew and Liam are doing the painting, and of course it’s really hot out! The plan was for them to paint early in the morning, but they’re not great at getting up really early, so more like starting at 8 or 9. Well, someone on Facebook mentioned that there’s a temperature above which you shouldn’t be painting – YIKES! I called up the Benjamin Moore store and indeed, you shouldn’t paint above 85F! So this painting is going to go slower than expected when it’s getting up to over 100 day after day. 🙁 But after 3 days some of the trim in the front has been primed and painted, the late afternoon sun is making the colors look a bit off, but you can see how the white will change this house!

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The plastic frames on the garage door windows have yellowed, look how much better the left one looks with some white paint!

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Here’s hoping the horrendous heat leaves us soon!