Making Improvements - Part 2

As I said in the first "Making Improvements" post, home projects are not for the faint at heart. The second big project of the summer, which actually started as the first project but is currently still in progress 2 1/2 months later, is painting the exterior of our house. The background on this project is, I've always hated the way our house looks from the outside; I wouldn't have come to look at it if our realtor and friend Steve hadn't insisted that we see it. He was right - I love our street and I love the inside of our house; but I've never liked the outside. It lacks any charm or character; one person said correctly, "It kind of looks like the back of a house." A few months ago, I had a vision for how I wanted it to look and I got really excited about it. But bringing that vision to life has been a chore to say the least.

The major part of the vision was removing the white paint from the bricks in the front. Sounds easy enough, but wow, it hasn't been. I talked to tons of people and no one would even give me a quote to do the work. No one, except Timmy. I found this hilarious guy Tim would said, "Sure, I can do it." And he did, but I thought it might kill him. Tim is awesome - he's the most perseverent guy I've ever met. To get this paint off, he has tried everything under the sun, twice. He explored chemicals, blow torches, sand blasting, power washing, scraping and more. And he refused to give up, even though I'm sure he wanted to. Even more, he always was in good spirits about it, determined to find a solution. Eventually, he found a way with special products and a method he developed to get this paint off. And let me tell you, I think it looks beautiful! I'm not going to put up a picture until it's done, but we have several people stop in front of our house daily to say how much they like it. It is a dramatic change, and I'm so happy with it.

But as I mentioned, this type of thing is not for the faint of heart. As if 2 1/2 months of trying to get the project complete weren't enough, there is another issue. After the process was complete, I started to consider that we could have an issue with lead paint because our house is from 1956. The internet had my mind spinning, so this morning I took paint samples to the health department to be screened and Kate to the doctor for a blood test to ensure we are okay. The lead division at the health dept screened the samples for me immediately and while it's not totally conclusive, the 10 samples I took them (yes, I'm thorough :) all came up lead free. We'll hear about Kate's results next week, but I'm sure she'll be fine.

Again I say, this type of thing is not as easy as you think it should be. Who would have thought that repainting our house would take 3 months and involve city departments and doctors. The bright side is, I have a terrible memory so in time I will forget the pain of this and just enjoy the beauty of the improvements. And then, when enough time has passed, probably start a new project.


Just another "before" shot...when the giant new house was built and happened to be almost the same color as our "little" house, that was the final straw in my aggressive work to get this project rolling. Pics coming soon - as a tease, last night Rob Seddon come over to our house, as he has many times before, and starting driving by our place because he didn't recognize it!! :)