Home Renovation Project: Exterior Painting: Final Touch-Ups
The painters showed up today to help me finish up the final touch-ups around the house. I worked side-by-side with Yuri and his son Oleg and we were able to paint all of the new material with the exception of the new trim Baxton installed around the three rear dormers. Yuri and Oleg will be back tomorrow for the last little bit and then the project will be done. The rain is due to start on Wednesday or Thursday. So I'm really happy that everything will be done before then.

Home Renovation Project: Exterior Painting: New Window Trim
We decided to have Baxton install cedar trim around all of the windows on the house. The trim matches what was done around the doors in the back and what has always been present on the front of the house. Yes we should have done this before the house was painted, but we didn't really realize how much the trim was needed until after the paint was done.

The last of the window trim was installed just yesterday. I've notified the painters that we are ready to go with the new stuff, but I decided to take matters into my own hands today and get a jump on priming the new material. The seasonal rain is forecast to roll in late next week and once it is here, it will rain 6 days out of 7 until April or May. I was able to get all of the material primed today except for the stuff on the 3rd floor that my ladder won't reach.

Home Renovation Project: Exterior Painting: New Cedar Siding
I have a problem with letting the most minor of details bother me. Call it obsessiveness, or compulsiveness, or whatever. But I just could not get over the fact that the near-textureless uniformly-colored hardiplank installed around our smaller garage door clashed with the new stained garage door that we just had installed. Before the door and the hardiplank were painted the same color... that is no longer the case.

So I had Baxton rip off the hardiplank siding and replace it with cedar siding. The cedar siding will be stained using the same stuff that we used to stain the garage door. Problem solved (hopefully).

Last week, when I informed the head of the painting crew, Yuri, about what I was planning on doing... he laughed at me in disbelief (and perhaps with a little bit of annoyance since he had just finished painting the same area). My sister-in-law was more direct; she called me "crazy!" with an exclamation point. Probably true.

In any case, here is a picture of the new material Baxton installed today. Also note the new garage door hardware.

Home Renovation Project: Exterior Painting: Gazebo Deck Stained
The painting crew sanded down the deck today and then painted it with a solid color stain that matches the house exterior color. Hopefully it will weather well.

The gazebo is now done... just need to re-stain the cedar shake roof and repair a few of the shingles. But I'll do that myself.

Home Renovation Projects: Exterior Painting: Gazebo and Front Door
The painters pressure washed the gazebo a couple of days ago, primed it yesterday, and then today put the top coat on all of the white railings, posts, and interior roof trim. It looks great!

Our front door also was painted a deep Chianti red:

The pictures were all taken late because after Berkeley's soccer practice and game today, we went over to Red Robin for some dinner.

Home Renovation Project: Exterior Painting: Third Coat of Stain
We had the painters put a third coat of stain on the cedar shingles. The shingles didn't stain as dark as the cedar skirl siding, but a third pass seems to have done the trick. I snapped a few pictures of the house in the mid-afternoon (3:30ish) after the painters were pretty much done.

Home Renovation Project: Exterior Painting: Final Trim
The painters have finished painting the trim. I snapped a couple of pictures in the evening just before dusk, so the sunset gave the trim a bit of rosy tone to it. But it's a very dull cream color, not the slight pink that is pictured at left below.

Now that the trim is done I scaled up on the roof and re-installed our antenna for the benefit of over-the-air HD reception:

The painters are essentially done now. They still have to paint the gazebo in the backyard, the front door (a Chianti red color), and put one more coat of lacquer on the garage doors. And, of course, we still don't have that door installed in our master bedroom (pending installation of the steel beam), so once that is in, then the painters will need to come back and touch up around that door.

Home Renovation Project: Exterior Painting: Painting the Trim
A couple members of the painting crew started work on painting the trim today while the other one finished up painting the siding the new house trim color. Here are some pictures to document the progress made:

Home Renovation Project: Exterior Painting: New House Color
So, yesterday we decided on a paint color: one called "Cowboy Boots" available at Lowe's. The painters matched it up and applied it on two sides of the house today... see pics below:

I'm wringing my hands about the color. It doesn't look as good as I thought it would where the new color is immediately adjacent to the small garage door and also where the paint is up against the soffit material on the rear patio. But, I guess I'll get used to it... maybe.

Home Renovation Project: Exterior Painting: Second Coat of Stain
A second coat of stain was put on all of the new cedar material today. It has darkened up considerably, but may need one more coat to get it as dark as the old stuff. Perhaps we didn't color match well?

To be fair... in the picture above, the new material is in the sun and the old material is mostly in the shade. I'll have to give this a closer inspection tomorrow at midday.

Home Renovation Project: Exterior Painting: First Coat of Stain
We are finally starting to stain and paint the exterior of our home. This is the culminating step for two projects: our attic conversion and our back patio and deck. We aren't completely ready for the paint around the back patio and deck, but we can't put off the painting crew any longer without getting so far back in their schedule that they might have to push us back until next spring. We are still waiting for the stell beam to be installed in our family room so that we can cut in our master bedroom door out to the deck. And there is a bunch of siding repair around the future door that has yet to be done as well. *sigh*

Today the first coat of stain was applied to all the cedar siding and cedar shingles. See below:

We are also trying to decide on a house color, but nothing seems to really "pop" out at us.

Pictured from left to right: "Chocolate Cocoa", "Gardener's Soil", "Roasted Coffee", and "Cowboy Boots".