the renovation : exterior paint before & after

At the beginning of the year we purchased 'the dream home' - aka the really, really, really old, as in built in 1859 old fixer-up that we really can't renovate or move into until we sell our current home.  Which could be never.

le sigh.


Anyway, it's all good really because 'the dream home' is currently a two-family which we rent out the back unit of to cover the mortgage and are now preparing to rent out the front unit to make a little extra cash.  Cash for the renovation.  Which could be never.

So that's the story, now on to the photos of the only improvement we have made to the place so far: repainting the exterior and in doing so sealing the ancient bricks to prevent further water damage to the inside walls.

I posted here about our color dilemma.     The faded pink had to go, but since the metal on the actual windows is a light blue {and the windows are fairly new} instead of trying to paint the window 'trim' we tried to work with that light blue color.

Here is the house when we purchased it.  There was a lot of discoloration from water damage and no detail work.

Hubby and I knew we wanted gray for the body, but then we struggled for months about the trim colors, and just how crazy we wanted to go.  You can see all the different combos we looked at on the corbels above the doorway.   You can also see we had the wood doorway stripped bare and sanded, which made the new paint go on really smooth and nice.

Painting in progress!  We had only one guy doing the job, so it took a while.  But we weren't in any hurry.

Here is the BEFORE: 

And the AFTER: 

Sorry these pics look a little dark - clearly I should have been patient for a 'sunny moment' - but you get the idea!

We are pretty happy with the results!

There is much more to the house than this frontal view, and we repainted the entire thing.  I will wait to show you those photos until we make some more improvements, though.

Which could be never.  ;)

g