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Jennifer Sergent

Freelance design writer + blogger | Marketing copywriter

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The Power of Paint (or Stain!)

September 16, 2016

You’ve seen this headline before—so much that it’s almost become trite. But omigod it’s so true, especially when it came to this new house. We loved every bit of it—except the mustard-y color on the exterior, which in this case, was distinctly unappetizing:

On the last day of this color—good riddance!
On the last day of this color—good riddance!

The color is actually a solid stain. Who knew they made stains in such shades? But what I did learn is that while paint will start peeling after a while, stains merely fade—and that makes them a good choice for wood siding. With this light color, though, the fading stain looked like mildew on the side of the house, which nearly gave me a heart attack:

before-side

I knew from the beginning that I wanted the house to be more connected to its natural surroundings. I didn’t want to paint the brick at the foundation, which had some mottled colors in it. I wanted to find a mossy color that picked up some of the darker shades in the brick.

Thankfully, we found the right stain color at Sherwin Williams:

colors

We didn’t want the house to be too brown or too green or too gray, so we went with Tobacco:

tobacco

And all I can say is, WOW.

after-housefront

No more “mildew,” either. With the help of Wheat’s Landscape, our beds and paths look better than ever, too—and the overgrown holly bushes and trees have been tamed.

side-rocks

 

after-frontbed

The new color looked so incredible, that all of a sudden the steps and lamp post looked terrible (you can see the difference if you look back to the top photo). So we had our guys stain them. At first, I thought the steps turned out too red, but they’ve really grown on me. It’s like they’ve become an extension from the brick, amplifying that section and setting it off nicely against the darker house.

Inside remains a different story, but we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. The kitchen should be completely done by the first week in October, and we can begin putting plates and food items back this weekend—whereupon that will clear space in the family room, so we can move back there, too. A welcome relief! More on that soon—have a great weekend, everyone.

 

Filed Under: Architecture, Home Decor, Outdoors Tagged With: Landscaping, New Home, New House, paint

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Jean Molesworth Kee says

    December 1, 2016 at 3:30 pm

    Looks just fabulous, Jen! I’m a fan of solid stains– also for fencing. Great update– I love the combination of warm wood stains and “gray”

  2. Michael DiGuiseppe says

    September 17, 2016 at 5:12 pm

    Fantastic! Great choice. Now let do some wallpaper inside!

  3. alison giese says

    September 17, 2016 at 11:51 am

    The darker shade looks amazing! Great transformation! We’ve had so many door-to-door salespeople trying to convince us to “upgrade” our metal siding to vinyl. In truth, the siding is in great shape, so we just gave it, the trim, etc a fresh coat of an updated color scheme, and it was like a new house! I bet you get many compliments on it!

  4. Brian Fell says

    September 17, 2016 at 11:18 am

    WOW~~~ Just Stunning! Thanks so much for sharing Jennifer and what a showcase this home is quickly turning into.

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