Well, we are less than 3 weeks away from leaving New York, and as such, I am starting to freak out about how much we have to do in preparation to renovate our house! I have been looking through photos I took before we left to try and remember what it even looks like – it’s been nearly 4 years after all.
As you may recall, when we first bought the house – it was unlivable. We absolutely bought the WORST house in the best street. So we had to fix it up a bit in order to rent it out while we lived in New York. With a tight budget, we decided first appearances were important. So, we set about painting the outside of our house.
This is what the outside of our house looked like before… EEK!
- Before we started painting the outside of our house.
- Before we starting painting the outside of our house: chipped blue and cream paint covered it.
- The front door had character… but it needed to be brought back to life!
First things first, before painting the outside of our house could begin. We had to do the boring stuff… cleaning. So with buckets of warm water (it was winter so my hands were stupidly cold) and Sugar Soap, my husband and I scrubbed every surface with scrubbing brushes, then wiped any residue off with a damp sponge.
Sugar Soap is the best product for cleaning big surfaces and can be found in almost all hardware stores (and some super markets) in Australia.
Ever since visiting England many years ago, I have had a love of red doors. Finally I had my chance. I chose SASSY RED. Oh yes I did. I removed all the hardware from the door using a screw-driver before painting. Once I was done, I screwed it all back into place.
When painting the outside of our house, we needed to use an exterior paint that could withstand all sorts of weather. We chose to use Dulux Weathershield Paint. Dulux guarantees their Weathershield paint won’t peel, flake or blister in any weather condition… so that was good enough for us! So far, so good.
- Cutting in – beginning stages of painting the outside of our house.
Next step was to “cut in”. For those unfamiliar with painting terms, this is when you use a hand-held angled brush to paint around the tricky edges of your surface. This makes it a lot easier when you go to use your roller brush for the bigger surfaces. I chose a bright white as I wanted a clean and crisp finish.
- Painting the brick wall with render paint.
Since this was a brick wall, we wanted to render it first so they surface was smooth (rendering is essentially when you apply plaster to a wall). However rendering is expensive and time-consuming. So we found a great product that combined a rendering effect with paint! WIN!
It’s called Havana Texture Coloured Render Exterior Paint and is made by Rockcote. You can buy it at Bunnings. It is thicker and grittier than paint, but can be applied with a regular paint roller. It fills in the gaps between the bricks and delivers a rendered effect with no more effort than painting.
Next step to our front-of-house-makeover was to buy some plants. We rang my Mum who is an expert in all things gardening. She advised we go with gardenias as they will get a little sun but not direct sunlight – the front of the house faces south. Plus we can prune them into a hedge when they grow big enough. We also bought two ficus figs, potted them into pretty square terracotta pots, and placed them at the entrance to the house.
- Nearly there…
My clever husband Matt made the bench seat. He found the wrought iron chair legs under his parents’ old house.
- After photo: painting the outside of our house is complete!
Ta-da!! All finished! All in all, it took Matt and I two full days of cleaning and painting to get this done. And cost us a total of $400 for paint, painting equipment, plants and pots. It was totally worth it, don’t you think?
– Penny xo
