House Facelift

After much debate (and a lot of prodding on my part), last week we hired some help to paint a couple of the peaks on the outside of our house!  Steve wanted to do it himself, and I know that he could do it, but the height really scared me.  Plus, I knew we didn't have any ladders that would reach that high (our neighbor offered one, but it is a scary ladder that needs to disappear, haha).  We called up a handyman who has done some other little jobs around the house for us (like clean out the gutters).  He didn't have a ladder that could reach, but he knew of a place where he could rent a cherry picker.  For less than $400, our house got a little makeover, and more importantly, Steve didn't have to put time and energy into it!

Before:

(This is the West Peak of the house that faces over our driveway.  You can tell that different areas of the house have been painted and not all of the paint really matches, so it will be nice to finally have all the areas matching.)

(This is the North peak, just above the big fancy glass window in the front.  You can see how bad this area was and how the paint was chipping off.  Before they painted on the new stain, they scraped off all the loose paint chips.)

(Close up of the condition of the paint prior to makeover)

After:

(West peak -- The color of stain that we chose was just a shade lighter than the original paint.  But in the end, it matched all the trim on the "newish" windows!  It makes the house look so much brighter and fresher.)

(Close up of the West Peak.  Apparently, there is a board on the right of that window that was cracked and loose.  The handyman put a few nails in it prior to painting to keep it in place.)

(Front of the house!  It looks tons better.  Now to have the chimney fixed and the slate put back in order in a few areas.  We also have plans to change the front door color again to make it match the roof a little better.)

(Close up of the North peak.  If you look closely, you can see that the boards weren't perfectly sanded, so you can see the old paint texture through the new application.  But from far away you can't tell.  For the price we paid, we're perfectly happy with it.  Our main concern was more about the fact that the wood was exposed.)