Naturally Simple: A Freshly Painted Home

As you saw in the before pictures, our house was in desperate need of some love. The old paint on the house was the original done 41 years ago. To say it was past it's prime was a giant understatement. Part of our buyers agreement stated the house needed to be painted by the 21st of June. We had contacted multiple contractors but they would never show up. On June 20th the escrow company called to give us a recommendation. So glad they did! The new contractor showed up that night and started work the next day. They did a fabulous job and were a joy to work with.

The hard part about the paint job was picking the color. Our home is a mix between a Gambrel roof and an A-frame. That means that a very large portion of our house is roof. In our case a ginormous Elmo blue metal roof. It's great in the winter with all the snow we get but for picking colors, well it doesn't make the job very easy. We debated on colors for 4 months. We have stacks and stacks of paint chips that we went over for hours every week. We strongly considered a dark blue like this:

Craftsman Exterior by Rochester Architects & Building Designers William J. Thomas Studios

And plain white like this:

Traditional Exterior by Falls Church Design-Build Firms Sagatov Design-Build

In the end we decided on the following colors by Sherwin Williams.

Body- Buff SW 7683 (Satin Finish)

Trim and Deck Railings - Roman Column SW 7562 (Semi-Gloss)

Deck - French Roast SW 6069

The deck is a special kind of paint that expands and contracts with our severe weather conditions. It coated the worn and splintered boards fabulously.

Over all the only complaints we have are minor ones. I would have changed the white to be a little less bright. The swatch didn't accurately show the brightness (it's fairly close to a super white I'd say). We should have chosen a lighter color for the deck. Because it is so dark every single muddy print shows up. Not really an issue rather an annoyance. The upside is all of the yellow leaves that blow onto the decks look spectacular. I can't wait for fall for that reason alone. The underside of the upper deck was also painted the French Roast. It looks beautiful however we never communicated to the painter we actually wanted that portion white to help reflect light. All minor issues really and we are pleased with the outcome.