Exterior Painting and Restoration of Our Craftsman Cottage

I don’t want to let 2014 end without a post about painting the exterior of our house. This has been the project with no end. Seriously, it has just gone on and on and on. There are still some little, related projects that aren’t done and one big one—landscaping and re-seeding the front yard--but the painting is finished! I can hardly believe it. It’s taken more than 2 years but the house is painted.

Here is where we started. This is our Craftsman style cottage with aluminum siding (which was probably added sometime in the 1950’s) that had been painted (by yours truly) a few years after I bought the house. Here is what the house looked like 10 years ago. The big maple tree has since been removed.

Several years ago (I can't remember exactly how when) we had the worst ice storm I have ever encountered. The gutters on one side of our house were filled solid with ice and the weight of the ice pulled them off the house and caused them to twist and bend. Where they bent, the aluminum split. We had a contractor take a look. He said that way our house was built, there was nothing there to properly attach the gutters to and he would need to build something, blah, blah, blah. It was going to cost a lot and it was difficult to understand how he was going to do it without removing the aluminum siding. At this point we didn’t know what to do and didn’t have that kind of money so we didn’t do anything.

Then, a year or so later, comes a spring storm with very strong winds. Not a tornado, but straight line winds strong enough to take the roof off a car wash about 4 blocks from us and do a lot of damage to roofs, trees, and such in our neighborhood. Our house did not escape undamaged. The wind got behind the aluminum siding and peeled off a couple pieces . The siding was still attached to the house at one end and that long piece of siding was flapping back and forth in the wind. Can you imagine waking up to that noise? Our bedroom was on the other side of that wall and it was pretty scary until we figured out what was happening.

It didn’t make sense to invest a lot of money trying to repair 50-year-old aluminum siding. On top of that we already had the issue with the guttering. With some of the aluminum siding gone we were now able to peek behind it and see that the original wood clapboards were underneath and from what little we could see, looked to be in pretty good condition. We decided that we should probably remove the aluminum siding and try to restore the original wood siding but we didn’t have time for such a massive project.

I can’t remember exactly how long it was, but we just ignored the damaged siding. Since both my husband and I were working really long hours and we only saw the house in the dark, it wasn’t that hard to just pretend that we didn't have a problem. Then in early spring 2012, the brother of one of our friends was looking for some work and offered to remove the aluminum siding and haul it away for a few hundred dollars plus the proceeds from recycling the aluminum. An offer too good to refuse.

Here is the house right before the aluminum siding was removed.

Now, with the aluminum siding gone, we could see more of what we had gotten ourselves into. We were pleased that the wood siding was sound and there was no rotting anywhere. We were also delighted to see that the gables had cedar shingles and that the rafter tails (ours are purely decorative and not the ends of the actual rafters) which are a signature of Craftsman style houses were intact. Also, with the aluminum siding that had boxed in the overhangs gone, the proportions of the house were much improved. Here is a picture with the aluminum siding gone. The storm windows and aluminum trim around the windows is still on the house but you can see the rafter tails and cedar shingles in the gables.

Until the aluminum trim was later removed from the windows we didn't know that the tops of all the window frames had been chiseled off. We did know that the corner pieces of the house had been removed and although we could see where there had been decorative knee braces under the overhangs they were all missing. Much as we expected, the old paint was badly peeled and needed to be thoroughly scraped before any new paint could be applied. Here is some of that peeling paint.

That spring and summer, whenever the weather and my work schedule of 6 days most weeks allowed, I worked on scraping paint. It was going slowly and I wasn’t making any visible progress.  I tried all kinds of different paint scrapers; some very expensive paint remover that was supposed to work miracles (it didn’t); and an infrared paint remover. None of these things speeded up my progress. No matter what I tried, it was slow, dirty, hard work. Later, when I was working on painting our garage, I discovered paint scrapers with carbide blades. I highly recommend the carbide blade scrapers. They are more expensive than other scrapers, but they are worth the money. Change the blades often and be careful because they are sharp enough to shave the top layer of wood off.

By October of 2012, it was clear that I was in over my head with this project. My husband spent some time helping me (he always works 6 days a week so has little free time either) but with our work schedules it was going to take us years to just get ready to paint. During all this time, the house looked terrible.

So the next spring (2013) we found painters who liked to work on old houses, had the skills to do the carpentry work needed to replace the missing elements (not having to coordinate between carpenters and painters was a huge plus), and gave us a very reasonable price. To save money, I planned to paint the garage, back doors, window sashes, and the inside of the front porch myself. We got on the waiting list and started saving like crazy hoping to have the cash by the time the painters got to us.

While we waited, the house looked worse than ever and our next door neighbors were trying to sell their house. I felt so bad. Who would buy a house next door to a place that looked as bad as ours did? So here is what our neighbors had to look at for over a year. This side of our house showed up in their listing pictures.

We waited all summer and into the fall and all that time spent waiting gave me time to agonize over choosing paint colors. I had a very difficult time making up my mind. You can read more about what I learned about selecting exterior colors here and more about how I finally made my decision here.

I know that any color can pretty much be color matched in any brand of paint but the painters use Porter PPG paint and using their colors simplified things. The body of the house is Baritone. The shingles in the gables are Mountain Stream. The window sashes and back doors are Blue Bayberry. All of the blues are from the same card. The white trim is Delicate White. All are PPG colors.

By the time we came up to the top of the waiting list it was late fall and unfortunately the weather was not cooperating. The painters were able to finish scraping and priming but then we had the worst winter we have had in years and there was nothing to be done but wait for spring. I failed to take any in-progress pictures of the painting.

Finally, finally, this spring, 2 years after the aluminum siding was removed, the painters finished. Still, since I planned to do the window sashes and back doors, the painting wasn’t quite finished. The windows had been protected behind the storm windows so they were not in bad condition. Even so, to do the job right and not paint the windows shut was time-consuming. The doors needed quite a bit of scraping and one needed a bit of repair work.

By the end of the summer, I had the window sashes and the back doors painted. We salvaged the storm windows and I gave all of the frames a coat of white spray paint. The storm windows were designed to be part of the aluminum siding but with some generous applications of caulk we were able to re-install most of them. We have a couple that either need some additional work or possibly we will have to replace them.

Here it is before and after. 

Our house has never looked better. As I mentioned at the beginning of this long story, there are still a few things we want/need to do. The foundation was coated with some kind of textured coating that is peeling off so that needs to be re-done. We need new storm/screen doors for the front porch and for the kitchen door. We plan to have the same half-round gutters that would have been on the house originally installed. And, we have plans to completely redo our front yard. All of those will be projects for 2015.

Selecting Exterior Paint Colors Part 2: Craftsman-Style Cottage

As I mentioned in Selecting Exterior Paint Colors Part 1, I spent a lot of time agonizing over the selection of colors for the exterior of our house. An exterior paint job is not something that is quick, easy, or inexpensive to change if it is not right. And, I wanted it to be, well, perfect. I wanted charm and curb appeal.

Our house is a small Craftsman-style cottage that was built around 1929. It is in an urban neighborhood made up of houses of similar age and style built closely together. Our house had aluminum siding which was probably added in the late 1950's. About 10 years previously I had painted the aluminum siding and that paint job held up very well. Some wood trim was in need of a touch up but nothing more needed to be done until a wind storm came along and ripped part of the aluminum siding off the house.

After much deliberation we decided that the way to go would be to remove the aluminum siding and repair and repaint the original clapboards underneath. And, so began my odyssey to select the perfect color.

We started out with aluminum siding that had been painted Sherwin William's Bunglehouse Gray and Rookwood Terra Cotta. You can see in the "before" picture above that Bunglehouse Gray was more of a grayish, green on our house than it looks on the Sherwin Williams website. I liked that combination a lot but I was ready for a change and about the time we started planning for our new paint job the house catty corner across the street got a new paint job, which, as you can see below, was very close to our house's colors.

That sealed the deal for me. Our house needed a new exterior color scheme. Some of the things that I took into consideration when selecting the new colors were:

White storm windows--We planned to re-use the existing storm windows which were white. The outside frames can be easily freshened up with some white spray paint but changing the frames that hold the glass is much more difficult because the glass has to be covered and taped on both sides. A big job when you have 18 windows to deal with.

Landscaping--I had found it a challenge to coordinate the colors of flowers and blooming shrubs with the terra cotta colored trim. So many blooms are a shade of red or pink that clashed with the orange-toned trim. It wanted to be able to use those colors in the front landscaping.

Style of the house--Since the Craftsman-style takes inspiration from nature, appropriate colors are earth tones. With the aluminum siding removed, it was apparent that the house had originally been painted white with white trim and black window sashes. I wanted to bring out some architectural details that we found under the aluminum siding, like cedar shingles in the gables and exposed rafter tails. I knew that all-white wouldn't accomplish that and since the house had never been an authentic Craftsman color I didn't really feel bound to an earth tone. 

Size of the house--Our house is a true cottage with the square footage coming in under 1,000. Common wisdom is that a dark color can make a house look smaller. So, while I did end up choosing a dark color, I had the cedar shingles in the front gables painted a lighter color to highlight them and to draw the eye upward. When I finally show the completed "after" pictures (I am still working on painting window sashes) you can see if you think that worked to make the house look taller. 

Other houses in the neighborhood--In the end this was my biggest influence/consideration in choosing the colors. 

While I was debating over my paint colors there was a flurry of painting going on in the neighborhood. Our next door neighbors painted their house a nice earthy tan and brownish, gray. Across the street the house got a coat of dark gray and right next door to that they went with light gray. So gray was out, as were various tans which are also well-represented up and down the street.

I had just about made up my mind to go with a clearer (without the gray) light green and went so far as to bring home a sample when I realized that it was a very close match to a house down the street. Not only was the color nearly the same but that house was originally the same house plan as ours. I am not a copycat, so the light green was eliminated, as were several other shades of green around our neighborhood.

The house on the other side of ours is yellow and the house next door to that is an eye-catching (in a good way) red, so red and yellow were also out. After eliminating all those colors, I kept arriving at blue. 

I spent hours looking at inspiration photos. Porter PPG Paints (which is our painters' brand of choice) has a great tool on their website which lets you upload a picture and color match it to their paint. As it turned out, most of my inspiration photos were blues that had a lot of green in them. After flipping through the paint deck over and over, I finally narrowed it down to 3 slightly different blues. I purchased 1-quart samples of my 3 favorites and using sheets of foam core board I made large paint chips that I could move around and try out on each side of the house.

As you can see, the 3 finalists were very close and I am not even sure which one is which in this photo. My final choice was Baritone for the main body of the house. I know that the paint store can color match colors from other brands, but it was easier to select from Porter's color deck since that was the brand the painters were using and they had a huge selection to choose from. So many that it was difficult to narrow it down to the final selection.

After making my agonizing choice, I proceeded to try the color out on the garage (we hired painters for the house but to save some money I decided to do the garage myself) and I just about panicked. It was soooo blue. And, so much darker and brighter than it had looked in my sample. After a few days, it really grew on me and I began to feel confident in my choice.

You are probably wondering how it turned out. I am saving the final reveal for another post because I am still working on the window sashes, which I also decided to do myself to reduce the expense a bit. Today the temperature here is 93 degrees with 53% humidity, feels like 102 degrees, so I am not getting any painting done but I will give you a sneak peek.

Come back later for the final reveal of our exterior painting. I will talk about removing aluminum siding, scraping old paint, and why we chose to hire out for the major portion of the work. 

Selecting Exterior Paint Colors Part 1 : A Few Things to Consider

This time last year I was agonizing over selecting exterior paint colors for our house. I didn't just want our house to have a fresh coat of paint. I wanted it to have curb appeal and be memorable. I wanted it to stick out in  the neighborhood, in a good way. Paint costs the same no matter what color, so I wanted to get the most bang for my paint bucks.

Here are some of the things I learned about selecting exterior paint colors:

1. Think about the color of features of the house that are not easy to change, such as the roof or brick. Unless you are considering painting the brick or replacing the roof sometime soon, it's a good idea to pick a color that compliments or blends with the colors of those existing features.

2. Consider the style or architecture of the house. A Victorian cottage might look adorable in a color that wouldn't be appropriate for a Cape Cod or a ranch.

3. Don't forget the landscaping. If you have a profusion of pink bushes and flowers in your front yard, some colors might clash. The same colors can look different depending on whether your yard has shade or bright sun.

4. What are the colors of  other houses in the neighborhood? You don't want to clash or completely blend in, so make sure to take a look at your next door neighbors' houses. And, don't be a copycat. Inspiration is one thing but outright copying a close neighbor's colors can lead to hard feelings.

5. The accepted wisdom is that dark colors can make a house look smaller and light colors can make a house look larger. Also, dark colors recede and light colors advance.

6. A rule of thumb about using different colors on the top and bottom of the house is that a dark color on the lower part of the house will ground it. A dark color on the upper part will make it look shorter.

7. Where you live can play a role in color selection. Colors that are appropriate for the beach, woods, a suburban neighborhood, or an urban, historic district vary.

Are you wondering which of these paint colors are the ones I ended up selecting? None of these. These are some exterior color combinations from around my neighborhood. To find out what I chose, you will need to read Selecting Exterior Paint Colors Part 2 : Craftsman-Style Cottage.