Elmer Jacobi
You guys, I’ve been waiting to share this reveal with you since I started on our exterior makeover back in June. Mix that with Florida rain, heat, a toddler running around and curveballs thrown left and right. Before we dive into all the things that I did, we need a good ol’ flashback to where we started: Doing this paint project myself saved us thousands of dollars and allowed us to budget for new gutters that we desperately needed for our home. Don’t worry, I’ll be sharing the cost breakdown along with the paint I used, what exactly went down and things that I learned along the way. Stucco: Cloud White by Benjamin Moore in their low-lustre exterior paint.
Fascia: Cloud White by Benjamin Moore in their low-lustre exterior paint. Exterior window frames: Black Magic by Sherwin-Williams in their satin Pro-Industrial paint.
Our windows are also due to be replaced so I figured this wouldn’t hurt to try first. Before we had creamy windows and I knew they would blend in with the white exterior and almost look dirty.
In order to get the white exterior we wanted, I knew I had to do something about the windows. I used the Pro-Industrial paint by Sherwin-Williams on the interior windows (you can read that tutorial here) and loved the results.
That moment when you peel everything off and see your black window frames you have dreamed of at a fraction of the cost, well, you need to just try it. But fast forward to current day and our hearts were set on a creamy white. We slapped a few samples on various parts of our home so we could see them in different lighting and angles. Narrowing it down to a few, we thought we had our heart set on Simply White. I will say, now that the house is fully painted, depending on what is reflecting on it will change the color. After 4 hours of reading the user manual, talking to the company and watching YouTube videos, we only had a 30 foot section painted on our home.
We threw our towel in and accepted our house wouldn’t be painted that weekend. We were able to return the paint sprayer and opted to rent one from a local tool rental company instead.
We were put on a two week wait list which delayed our house getting painted.
We completed not one, but TWO coats of paint around our entire home by 4:00 pm which also included the soffits. There’s a slim chance you’ll need an industrial paint sprayer again and if something is wrong with it, it’s on the place you rented it from and not your pocket. Originally we were thinking a muted black but after giving it a test run it didn’t look quite right.
Our ultimate goal is to have a wooden front door and garage but we’ll see. We decided to go with Cloud White on the fascia and let the gutters be the black accent we were wanting.
It would have been way too much prep work to protect the roof, windows, stucco, screens, doors, etc.
Our old gutters only covered half the house with not enough downspouts to make them effective. My friends, these black seamless gutters were the icing on the cake for our exterior makeover. **The only change I made after the gutter install was painting the peak at the front of the house black.
From a paint sprayer messing up, vacationing for a week, a lot of delays due to rain, waiting on the gutter install, working during nap times, etc., IT’S FINALLY DONE!! This is by far the largest paint project that I have tackled, let along in the Florida heat, and I’m so excited and proud with how it turned out. The day the gutters were installed I remember walking out to the road and soaking in the entire view.
But other than that, knowing that I painted literally every square inch of my home (minus the roof) gives me all the feels.
