(Finally, I can post House photos!!)

We knew when we bought our house three years ago that it would need repainting. The previous owners told us that before they bought the house it was in such bad shape no one would even look at it, so the realtor paid to put a coat of paint on just to get the house to sell. Consequently, they hadn't prepped it in any way, just painted over 50 years of damaged paint. It looked awful. Plus, we absolutely hated the color it was something between yellow, peach, and pink, with an occasional nod to the fact that the house had trim with the addition of a dirty gray color.






We also knew that there were serious problems with the porch. It was falling, rotting, and the bizillions of local cats thought that underneath it was the best litter box in town. Plus, it had a lovely single rusty pipe for a handrail. Here's a good shot of the broken down porch (with my legs):



After just living with it for three years, we realized that we risked major damage to the siding if we let it live through another winter. We decided that this summer it had to be done -- but it couldn't just be repainted. We had to strip 100 some years of paint from the exterior. Which is a serious problem. If you own a house or have even bought a can of paint you'll know that lead paint is a problem. So, we had to hire a special painting company that knows how to correctly grind down the house to the bare wood.

To abate the lead paint, our painters tented the house, used HEPA vacuums to suck up all the muck as they sanded it off. Poor guys had to tromp around in HazMat suits in the sweltering heat. (See earlier post for images of the ground house with tenting) In the meantime, we hired a great carpenter to rebuild the underside of the porch, to replace the decaying sides with historically appropriate lattice, and replace the pipe handrail with two wooden ones that matched the rest of the porch. Here's the front of the house with primer, you can see the porch in process here.



A couple of weeks ago the final coat of paint on the porch floor went on -- meaning that our 2-month house painting ordeal was over.

Isn't it beautiful?



Here's the side of the house and the garage with its new spiffy blue accent:



And here Spousal Unit is enjoying our new porch:





We couldn't be more pleased.