A Little Black Paint Makeover

Our mailbox has been living on a front porch chair for over a year... ever since we removed the asbestos siding. I don't like our mailbox, and I was hesitant to drill holes into the brick for a box that wouldn't stay long.

Here's the old mailbox:


I removed the stick on numbers, lightly sanded it with 22o sandpaper, and spraypainted it with a can of black paint we had lying around in the garage:


I then realized that the stick on numbers were the only numbers visible from the street...

... the other house numbers had been painted white. Even though we intend on replacing the posts soon, we can't have the house unidentifiable! They were too delicate and paint encrusted to remove for stripping or proper painting, so I used a paint brush to paint the numbers black.

Here's what the mailbox and numbers look like on our house:


Much better than an ugly white mailbox sitting on the green chair! If it wears well, I may not even need to buy a new mailbox. Here's to a little paint.

I Hate Venetian Plaster

It's pretty hard to work with, and not intuitive at all. Oh... and the directions aren't any better. Also, if you are hoping to use it to disguise poor walls, think again. Skim coating with drywall and painting will be MUCH easier (and what we will probably do with the rest of the house. However, despite all of the problems, the walls look MUCH better than when we started last year:

Here's where we are today:




Oh... and the new patch from running the doorknob through the freshly plastered wall:

It still needs a couple coats of plaster. Mental note to NOT run door knobs into freshly plastered walls.

A Few Notes:
* Apply it paper thin. It cracks VERY easily if it is applied too thick!
* If it cracks, sand gently, and apply another thin layer of the paint.
* It takes a LONG time. Plus, it needs several coats.
* The first layer will leave you feeling that you wasted $50 and 2 hours. It DOES get better.

Finishing the Bathroom- FINALLY

We've been remodeling our bathroom for about 18 months now. We don't think the appraiser will like our hand scraped walls, lack of trim, lack of water heater closet door, or trial paint splotches, however. There is nothing like an appraisal to give you a little "kick" in the rear to finish projects up.

It rained yesterday... the perfect time to start (or finish) an inside project. We decided to use Venetian Plaster to finish up the walls, as there quite a few drywall patches and a VERY heavy texture. We could have skim coated with drywall compound and painted to save some money, but decided that time was of the essence and that we needed to get it done fast.


After perusing the samples at Lowe's, we decided on an Olive green. Here is the first coat, wet. It looks like a green pepper instead of an olive... but the first dry spots are about 5 shades lighter and much more olive.



It doesn't look that great yet, since the first coat is put on messy. We're planning to finish it up tomorrow... and then add trim. Let's hope it turns out well!

Eye Candy and Paint Possibilities

Saw this on Flicker.... the perfect paint colors for our house.

Go take a look... it's gorgeous!

Funny enough, it's basically a twin to the other house in these colors we snapped a picture of:



Of course, my photography is no match!

Red Brick Victorian Houses in Denver

While I was away, I found myself in a fabulous Denver neighborhood full of brick Victorian houses. Most are much grander than ours, but they gave us some great ideas for paint colors to match our red brick cottage.

Here are a few of our favorites:














I really like the first one and the fourth one the best. Here's the house mocked up:
#1


#4/5


We're still playing with paint ideas; here's one more:

Trim Colors on a Red Brick House

It's time now to play "Pick the Trim Color", where I turn the floor open to your suggestions! (Pictures are below) Picking colors is not my forte.

Some background information:
The house next door is an identical cottage; it has original turned porch posts and fancy bracketry. Its trim is black and white. You can see a picture of a similar house (much fancier, with gingerbread and gables) here (substitute black for green).
Our house wouldn't have had the railings, but would have had the turned posts and brackets. We want to put turned posts back up instead of the hollow square columns we currently have; they are severely rotted at the base, and to me they make the house look too formal and Jeffersonian.

A historic choice of color would be dark brown. Our windows are dark brown on the exterior; I'm guessing this was the original color (before the green and the white). Other historic color choices would include tan and green. There is a gorgeous brick cottage a few blocks up with a dark taupe, forest green, and burgundy color pallete.

Complicating matters, our roof is in good condition, and a very light grey. Not the most attractive roof for using a historic pallate of colors! We are, however, NOT changing the roof.

Finally, I would like to be able to use one of the accent colors as the color of the addition on the back side of the house and possibly the garage, accenting both with the remaining accent colors and possibly a little "brick color".

Now, here are our contestants:
#1

House #1 is sporting a lovely sage green trim on the fascia, soffits, windows, and posts. Dark grey and light grey accents on the turned posts and door, and a weird peachy tan on the sills and headers complete this version.

#2

The grey on the fascia, soffits, posts, sills, and headers of House #2 is almost the same color as the roof. Paired with a muted blue door and post accents, it will stand out on any street.

#3

A darker grey adorns House #3's main trim areas. The door, header and sills are all a sage green (you kind of lose them around the door!); the same color is paired with a muted burgundy on the posts.

#4

Tan pays a visit to House #4. Paired with dark sage green and burgundy, it looks good without the roof. May we suggest a new hat for House #4?
#5

House #5 has chosen a lovely taupe as it's main accent color. It has paired this with a muted blue door and porch accents, along with light grey headers, sills, and post accents. The grey is mirrored in the roof.

#6

A plagieriser, House #6 doesn't see fit to have an original thought. Pairing the greys and taupes of House #5 with the sage greens of earlier houses, it is a copy in all ways.

#7

A late contender, House #7 is clad in a rich brown with a burgundy door and green and window accents.

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Now... your thoughts? Which are your favorites and why? What colors might you try out instead, and where?

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In case you are wondering, I used Benjamin Moore's Personal Color Viewer to paint my pictures. Why? Because it was the only cheap program usable on a Mac. It works OK... the cursors are too big, and it is very difficult to do precise detail work. Also, the program is not very intuitive. I'm sure there are better programs out there!

Two Small Projects

I found time yesterday to complete two small projects left unfinished. It's amazing how small projects pile up, with just a little bit of time needed for completion.

First, I painted the backsplash for the kitchen the same color as the walls.

Before:


After:


We still want to put some sort of tile or metal backsplash up instead, but spending for things besides structural integrity has been put on hold. With 20 minutes and a bit of the leftover paint, I have a nice looking kitchen. Temporary, but well worth it.

I also hung the bathroom vanity light. I bought it in January on clearance, and just haven't put it up. It's been sitting on the floor outside the bathroom for 6 months.

Before:


After:


Now, of course finishing the walls in the bathroom would go a LONG way to making it look nicer in there, too! Perhaps when it is too rainy to work outside...

It felt good to check off two more small projects... especially as we toil on the much larger project of the exterior. I need a little "instant gratification" every once in a while!

Scraping, Scraping, Scraping Along!

We have taken a break from door hanging and utter failure, as it takes two to move that door. We won't be in the house at the same time together until Monday. Look for an update on Tuesday on that.

Today I worked on another part of the bathroom: the walls.

Here is the lovely textured and badly patched walls*:


Using THESE...

...a safety mask and a scraper (with a very sharp blade) that I got from Habitat for $1 (yeah Habitat), I started to scrape off most of the texture.

Scrape, scrape, scrape.

It's very messy and dusty work*. I lined the edges of my walls with newspapers to catch the droppings.

Here is how far I got today:


A closer look:


2 more walls to go, and then onto sanding, mudding, and repainting.

Maybe if I pretend it's normal to not have a door on a bathroom, I can avoid dealing with the utter failure, too. Think it will work?

* Note... this is new drywall installed 4 years ago with only two layers of new paint on it (plus the nasty texture). If I was doing this to one of the much older walls in my house (which I will likely do if this turns out well), I would use a ventilator to avoid breathing in lead dust from the lead paint.

Bathroom Color?

Remember my can of miss tinted paint?

I painted some sample swatches on the walls:


It's hard to see it with the ugly blue wall color that is there now.



Does it match my baskets? I want to keep my baskets (though I plan on getting rid of the over-the-toilet hutch and using wall shelves instead).



It seems to match the slate floors well.

I think we will keep it. We can always try another color!

Color Choices and Beadboard?

The very first home improvement project we undertook when we bought this house was to paint the bathroom. We attempted to paint the walls the same grey color we thought the tub tile was... except, when that color covers entire walls it's actually a lavender/blue shade.

My bathroom in it's current purply-blue and white glory:

We would love to paint a different color. We are thinking one of the shades below.. probably the second or third saturation level.

1)
2)
3)
4)

The great part about #1 is that it is from the same tint family as the living room and bedrooms. The living room is the lightest color on the swatch, and the bedrooms are one color lighter. It might make a nice visual connection between the bathroom and the rest of the house to stay in that family. Of course, the green in #3 is nice, too and the chocolate in #4 just makes me hungry!

Suggestions of different colors are more than welcome...

Also on a slightly different note, I've been toying with the idea of adding white beadboard around the bottom of the bathroom and just painting the upper portion the above color choice. It's a small space and wouldn't cost much. Would it be too much of a contrast/too white?