Face Lift ...

It has to be said that our "renovation project" truly began about six years ago when Scott, my husband, painted the entire outside of our house.  It was the best birthday present I've ever received and it took two and a half months to complete during a summer with a record number of ninety plus degree days. 

Scott and his older brother had painted houses during their college summers, so he had not only the patience for such a project, (something I have very little of) but the knowledge to boot.  We were also trying to save money by doing it ourselves. And when I use the term "ourselves" I'm usually referring to my wonderful husband! What we didn't count on was the brick being so porous.  It slurped up two coats of California Paint tinted primer.  To keep things even, Scott painted two coats on the siding as well.  That, coupled with two coats of exterior paint in the California brand plus the chocolate brown paint for the shutters and front door ended up costing us about $500 less than what was originally quoted by a college student-run painting company.  Of course, they never would have used the brand of paint we chose nor the number of coats we used, but we were surprised at what our DIY project cost us in the end.  However, six years later and there isn't a chink or chip in the paint and although we'll have the addition painted once it's finished, we won't have to repaint the entire house again because it's in such good condition.

But the bottom line is that something as simple as paint can change the entire look of a room or in our case, a house.