house paint reveal

[before...bile yellow and poop brown]

it's so true that a fresh coat of paint can add new life to just about anything. we've been in our house for almost two years, and we've planned to paint the exterior since the first time we walked in the door. finally, we got around to it.

[after: SW dovetail, gauntlet, alabaster, & marigold]

we always knew we wanted a gray exterior, but, well, that didn't come so easy. 16 quarts of trial colors, a polka-dotted side of the house, a 7am run to Sherwin-Williams and some cha-ching later, we're pretty happy thrilled with the result.

we couldn't have done it without some seriously qualified expert opinions. special thanks to my cousin Janet Sanders at Sanders & Sanders Associates in Houston. she's got plenty of other things going on these days with a daughter getting married this summer + helping my mom remodel her house, but she did, and she nailed it. if you need any architectural or interior work, she + her hubs are the best.

another special thanks to Anne Manning from Manning Homes. she swung by one AM to offer a second (and "professional") opinion as we narrowed down the polka dots. and she came wielding her swatch book, just in case we'd left out a shade during the trial. she's juggling a few balls too--a 6 month old, a 3 year old, 6 year old, and a traveling job. we would've picked the wrong white without her.

and, surprisingly, no one talked us off the ledge with our orange windows. even though they probably wanted to.

i'm not sure if it's the paint, or the subsequent "finishing" projects that followed, but our house finally feels like a home. and that's priceless. we hung the swing we bought after we moved in - it always clashed with the house, so it sat under the guest bed for 2 years. we potted some plants in shiny new planters, and yeah, even hung something over the sofa.

[my new fave spot. what to do about the tinted plexi in the background?]

saturday morning, i was enjoying my coffee & muffin on the swing, watching the neighborhood come to life. Lula joined me--she likes the swing. we could see the English Premier League game on TV through the window while cricket got his weekly dose. and it suddenly felt like home. not just a house.

[our newest tenant deems our porch home-worthy]

and we watched a bird build a nest in our freshly painted porch, and figured she agreed. (she'd actually fought another bird the day before to win her spot...it feels good to be coveted among the birds.)

i'll be posting tips, lessons learned, + material lists soon, so stay tuned.