The Walls (Finally) Get Pretty

After yesterday’s post, which was chock-full of prepping and priming, we were ready to get some paint on this house. It just so happens that one of our helpers these past few weeks professionally painted house exteriors to put himself through college.

Are we lucky or what?!

Dave brought his airless spray painter. And now I want one. But he made it look so easy to use, and I’m sure that isn’t the case. Here he is prepping the sprayer for its work duties for the day.

The house is covered and primed and ready to soak up a first coat of paint. Today, we will get through two coats of paint on the walls. We will return next week to paint the trims and upper moldings a dark coordinating color.

It will be gargeous!

This was the side wall, ready for some primer after Tom scraped the living daylights out of it. While Dave sprayed the rest of the house, this side wall got some primer. It’s nice to only need an hour of drying before it can be coated in paint!

By the time he finished spraying the rest of the house, this wall was ready for the spray gun.

Tom was busy on another side of the house, priming some bare wooden trim. This won’t be painted today, but it’s nice to protect it from the elements so that it will be ready to go when we return next Saturday.

In case you didn’t know, it is beyond fascinating to watch a professional painter work his magic. I was so excited for the walls to go from partially-covered-in-ancient-paint to incredibly awesome…all in a matter of seconds.

And Dave was very good at what he does.

So, honestly, I think that we were all bummed that it simply wasn’t in the present budget to paint the brick on the lower portion of the house. But I can’t tell you enough how wonderful it looks next to the new wall color!

It’s almost like new life was breathed into the old brick by painting just above them. Other than a few character stains from almost-fifty years of the elements wreaking havoc on them, the brick also looks like it has been given another chance at life.

Since a lot of the prep work was done, there wasn’t much to do now but to admire Dave’s handiwork. A few of us helped him with the hoses, drop cloths, and sprayer so he could keep moving without keeping track of all of those things.

Peyton climbed the roof and painted the chimney the same beautiful color that was going on the walls. No surface was left out when it came to our loving today.

Also in this shot, you can see the paint color versus the white primer on the walls. To the right has been sprayed and looks awesome. On the lower chimney, it still needs a shot of paint. Isn’t the difference incredible?!

Marshall got up on the roof as well to prime this wooden trim. Since this gets lots of direct sunlight each afternoon, it was critical to get it primed and painted in order to protect the wood from warping.

Our harsh desert sun can do lots of damage in a very short amount of time.

The sidewall has been primed, but I love this picture of the newly-painted walls! Doesn’t it look wonderful? And it matched so well with the brick. Actually, when they picked out paint colors, this looks a little more gray in the samples. It is a very warm gray on the walls.

We were surprised when it was first being sprayed, but in a good way.

Since the upper trim won’t be painted today, Hubby kept busy by filling in cracks in the forty-eight year-old wooden beams with caulk. This will look seamless after it gets covered in paint next weekend.

Meanwhile, Dave kept spraying like there was no tomorrow. I would love to build a door for their water heater to be covered again. But just a coat of paint made its shelter look a lot better already.

Holy smokes. This looks amazing! It was very satisfying to see the paint going on at last. We have been working on this house for five weeks now, and it’s always nice to see a glimpse of what the final product will look like.

All of this trim under the back patio used to be blue paint. Everyone voted to paint it with the lighter color rather than the dark. The light gray really adds lots of warmth and height to the patio instead of making it feel more closed in. I really love the impact.

   

Dave was like an energizer bunny today, as long as we kept him hydrated. So demanding! But covering the entire house in its first coat took less than an hour. Wow!

And even cable boxes and wires can look better with a fresh coat of paint.

  

After a long, exhausting day, the two coats of paint were finished. We had been here since about 8:30 this morning and finally left around 5:30 this evening. A long day, but what a difference in the house!

You can still see glimpses of the blue that used to be on the walls underneath the covered porch. Those will all turn into a beautiful dark gray next week. But I love seeing it next to the new walls, which were oh so recently the same color.

Doesn’t this look better?! I love it. I absolutely love it.

Already the house looks new and fresh. I also love taking away all of the paper and tape to reveal an almost-done finished product. Sorry that I’m always so impatient!

Have I mentioned that they are letting me paint the door red?! And I have already sprayed all of the fixtures (light, doorbell, mailbox, house numbers) in a beautiful satin nickel finish to match the door handle. It will all look amazing once the trim is done and I can put them up again!

This is the carport showing their garage entrance to the house. How clean and nice does this look? The door trim with get a nice, dark color on it. And, maybe eventually, the door can get a new coat of paint as well.

Here is the sidewall with two coats of paint. Doesn’t it look better than scraped giant brick? I really love the warm color on the walls.

All of this upper trim will be a new dark gray next Saturday. And the homeowner wanted to paint the window trims that dark color as well but says he can do it. All of those accents will really pop when we are finished in about a week.

Here is the west-facing side of the house, which has taken quite a beating from the setting sun all those years. It now looks brand-new.

Here is the back patio with two coats of paint. And you can see that the new trim above has been primed and is ready for trim color when we return next Saturday.

My goodness, this looks incredible. It was worth all of the hard work just to see it looking like this!

 

And even the back patio door got a facelift today. One less thing to worry about when we come to add the finishing touches to this home.

And here is the back wall of the master bedroom. Their home has a very similar floor plan to ours!

We had to trim out a bunch of old ivy before painting this section. It had taken over the world and was starting to climb up into the wooden trim and was splitting it away from the rest of the house.

I’m glad that it was stopped before the rest of the neighborhood started to notice missing children everywhere…

Done for the day, and I couldn’t be happier with the results. I’m so glad that we had so many professionals helping out. It really made this home look polished and new. Can’t wait to see what the dark trim does to finish the rest of our paint job next week!