Painting the Exterior of our House

This is the year when we feel that we must be good stewards of what the Lord has entrusted to us by painting the outside of our house. We have lived here for twenty years, and have painted it twice before.

Our house has 37-year old pressed-board lap siding, which really needs to be replaced in many areas, but it doesn't seem prudent to make a large investment in it, in this economy (ie. never get our money out of it...). The trim is in pretty good condition, except for the west gable end where the fascia board has been very warped and curling.

Note the blue wonder bar in Rowen's hand, which carved a nasty gash in his left palm shortly after this. It still hasn't healed completely, which gets him out of washing dishes ;-).

We are in the process of replacing that, as well as about 200 linear ft of siding that was not worthy of paint. As soon as the weather permits (not this week) we will continue the re-construction in preparation for painting.

Emily and Jason were thrilled to be the ground crew on March 21, as we began our project before a major winter snow storm!

Jeff is glad to get valuable experience, as he decides whether his life work should be in construction.

Jason was glad that he had that hard hat on a couple of times!

Now for the hurdle that we have before us.... We are having a hard time deciding on what color(s) to paint our house. When we moved here in 1989 it was mainly off-white with medium brown trim. Both times that we have painted it, we made it country white (like a dark cream color) with country blue trim. The last time we added a few accents of dark-cherry red. That all seems very normal to us now, though it used to be very special. So, we have been trying to decide if it is time for a change, and should it be a major change, or a more subtle one?

Our oldest sons live 750 miles away and have their own professional painting business. They love the new, outlandish colors! Tim suggested that we paint the siding a light sage green, with white trim, and dark red accents. Hmmm...we love those colors together, but how would they look with our un-changable - red brick? We have talked about a light gray for the siding, and hunter green trim, maybe a touch of dark red accents. Or ...........???

Look at these pictures and tell us what you think. Note that we are blessed to have two big trees in our front yard, making it impossible to get a good picture of the front of the house. These pictures were taken last week, before the leaves emerge on the linden tree (left side). Mid-summer you can hardly see the front of our house from the street at all.

The roof has a slight bluish-greenish cast to it; hard to see from the ground, or in these pictures.