Painting Brick

Here is a reminder of what our home looked like when we bought it in December of 2015. It had great potential and needed some extra love. Once the weather was warm enough we set to work on the exterior. The house was already painted a light gray but it was hard to tell because the colors of the rest of the house overpowered it. I wanted to leave the gray but paint the brick. I told all of my neighbors about painting the brick and they were all terrified of what I was about to do. I did some research but mostly went out on a whim because I figured I couldn't mess it up THAT bad. 

I chose to paint it with Behr Exterior paint, matched to Alabaster White. I originally bought a different white color because I had used so much Alabaster inside, but I ended up only painting about a 3x3 area and hating it, so I went back to my trusty Alabaster color. 

We sprayed the brick all off with our power sprayer and let it dry so the surface was clean and ready to go. We didn't tape anything off, I just followed my husband with a cardboard box and put it up against the house to catch the overspray in the areas we didn't want painted. We used a cut up box to cover the windows too. 

We bought a paint sprayer when we bought the home, just a $100 Graco brand sprayer at Home Depot, and ended up using it to paint. The brick was extremely porous and there is no way we could've rolled or brushed it without destroying the brush or roller every 5 feet. We had to take a break with the sprayer every 15-20 minutes because it would start to get hot, but other than that it worked great.

We did a coat of primer on the exterior because the brick was red, and I do think it helped with coverage. Then we did an additional 2 coats of Alabaster and ta da! It looked FABULOUS. 

I had also given the door color a makeover because the previously blue wasn't my style. I went with a softer blue to tone everything down. I used an exterior paint from ACE (our only local hardware store) that is supposed to be guaranteed to never fade. I only bought a quart because I was only painting a front door so it was a cheap makeover. 

Our next step was to build up our pillars. They were these tiny weak little things and I hated the look of them. We added some fake pillars for looks, and built up the other ones, while also adding the trim at the top for a finished look. 

I built the shutters which is a really simple project, I didn't even use a tutorial I just winged the whole thing. I did measure my windows so I knew what size to make them, and then I stained them with an Espresso stain. I loved the way they turned out. 

I knew I wanted to put shakes on the peak of our house, and I spent some time researching costs but just didn't love anything I came across. Then one day while searching the classifieds I came across a FREE post for old shakes. Someone had torn them off their old roof and just wanted them gone. I sent my husband right over to gather old crappy shakes because they were perfect for what I wanted. 

My hubby put them up and it definitely finished the look of our house. I was in love. 

We paid for the wood for the pillars, the paint for the exterior, and the wood for the shutters. I estimate that the whole project cost us less than $200 and look at the change!