for some reason I wanted to save money and broke my back painting my house exterior (lol and rip)
looking at my house day after day, it didn't bring me any joy. at all.
we bought this 1961 beige wonderland house, and I wanted something more colorful and palm springs. our neighbors got their similar size house painted and I asked how much they paid and I was absolutely shocked. so I said f that, and decided I'd just paint it myself!
so like I said, our house was beige (and brown) here's a picture of what it looked like when we bought it:
I wanted something brighter. so I decided white would be perfect, but I had already painted our brick to be colorful just to give myself a serotonin boost in the meantime, and used that color palette as inspiration if I wanted to bring a color pop around the house.
the process for this was simple: powerwash all the paint off (and I mean my sister spent hours sitting there with a power washer getting every single speck off!), paint with a really good primer, then paint white and sketch out and paint my design. I also painted the front door orange in the meantime, but it really felt like it was all fighting with the beige.
staring at my house, I decided the alcove around the front door would be the absolute perfect spot to do a monochromatic color pop. similarly, I decided in the backyard that I'd paint two of the external walls this color pop as well just to tie it all together and add some intrigue.
cue hours and hours of cleaning, scrubbing, prepping, and painting.
but first, choosing the colors! I brought a bunch of samples home and taped them to the house for a couple of days so we could see them in all the lights. I'm so happy we did this as a lot of the whites were pulling too yellow or blue and some of the pinks were way too dark.
I headed to sherwin williams after solidifying color choices, only for the man to refuse selling me these color for outdoor house paint. he said they wouldn't do it and I'd have to choose from a plethora of boring colors.
I said f that and drove over to dunn edwards (aka my safe haven) and they scoffed at what that man said and said I'd just have to be aware if a color was marked "I" for interior it would probably fade faster than normal, but my whole mural was interior colors and hadn't faded over the previous year of sunlight so I said heck it and chose some colors. that did make me scared though and I edned up going with a color that was way more hot pink than the terracotta I was looking for. which was a mistake, but we remedied it later!
here's the "hot pink" in question. I felt attacked by it right away and drove my butt right back to dunn edwards and went with my original color choice. I am SO glad I went back.
I soldiered on with this change, feeling better and better with every stroke!
I decided I'd circle back on that change, and decided it was time to tackle the main walls and paint them white (along with the shed, which was a faded yellow at this point)
I got literally the like cheapest sprayer I could off of amazon, and started. this paint sprayer held on until the final wall of the shed was painted and then it died (rip), in the future I think I might invest in an actual nice paint sprayer, but today is not that day.
I sprayed right over my previous mural on the back patio, as it was time for something new, and I wanted it to tie into the new overall color scheme I was going for. figured this was the easiest route in the long run and I could deal with it later (surprise I didn't wait and decided it had to be painted ASAP, what's new?)
I also painted the left two walls in this area (where the slats started) the pink color
I'd say I was averaging about a side of the house per day, so the house itself took me 5ish days, and the shed took me a day and a half.
always a multitasker ADHD queen, I decided this was the perfect point to paint a mural on the spot I had previously painted over on the back patio. you can see that process video here.
further losing the plot, I also decided to make some progress on painting a mural on my shed. I got inspired by a design by banyan bridges, and got to work!
I ended up moving some colors around as I went just because they weren't contrasting on the actual shed like they had in my digital mockup, but I was really happy with the end result. the shed sits right next to a big orange tree and I felt like the design really mimicked the orange tree and tied it all together!
before looping back and finishing up the front area, I also decided the area that had previously had some colorful shapes around my plants next to my outdoor dining table, needed a little love. so I whipped up a drawing and painted it on the wall utilizing my paint archive once again.
finally, I circled back and finished up the front. bringing this project to a close!
if you ask me, it looks and feels 111% better now. I come home and feel like I'm home.
