Before & After {exterior makeover}

Our house got a new paint job in May...so I thought I'd finally blog some before & afters!

It was a stressful process for me! Picking out colors for interior walls isn't that big of a deal for me. I like earth tones, and I tend to like darker, cozier colors. AND it's just a wall...if you don't like it, you can easily re-paint it. Well, that's NOT the case when painting a 2-story house! I was super nervous to finalize a color, and have my painter buy all the 5 gallon buckets of it! Yikes!

I knew I wanted either a dark gray, brown/gray/taupe, or messenger green

I used the Sherwin Williams ColorVisualizer to help pick a color. I found a few I liked on my paint deck, and then uploaded a picture of our house and tried them all to see what they looked like. Once I narrowed it down to Foothills (SW7514, if you're interested), I had my painter get me a sample jug of paint. BEST decision ever!!! We only used about 1/4 of the little jug, and were able to paint a really good size patch on the back of the house. (Justin had to tell me that I didn't need to paint the whole house!) Anyway, it was soooo helpful! I was able to look at the color during different times of day, and against my white trim, and knew immediately I loved it!

I knew I wanted black shutters, so this was to help me visualize the house color, white trip and black "shutters"

After that, we ordered the paint, and the painters went to work!! They power washed the whole house, covered/taped all the windows, doors and trim, painted everything, touched up trim in 2-1/2 days! Oh my, I was so excited!! It was totally worth it to pay someone else to do the job. With a 2-story house, we would have been painting for 3years to get it all done! They had a lift and sprayers, making it so quick!

Here's the BEFORE & AFTER of the front...

(the before was taken the first time we ever came to look at the house, before we made an offer)

In December 2011, we had to have all the white trim painted in order to get our home loan, so it was already nice and fresh when the siding was painted in May 2012. 

We also had our garage doors painted! This was another stressful decision for me! My little brother told me as he has before when it comes to painting "Leave it white! You paint everything...leave it alone, Martha"! Well, I think I proved him wrong again :) I like them much better painted! It was like getting brand new garage doors. They were in pretty good shape, but it just made them all fresh and new. We also had some plastic sunbeam inserts in the windows that I removed.

Some more of the process...

Finally, we had my black shutters installed! AND my vision was complete. 

That's all for now!! I really wanted to do a mustard gold door, but for now it's still red. I like it red too :)

Our last step will be to take down all the existing light fixtures and give them a fresh coat of black paint. They're not really our style, but for now a little fresh paint will make due.  

Then the front walk needs some major landscaping help!