Hi Guys! I’m excited to share with you my plans and ideas for our exterior house update that is being undertaken this summer. This post is image heavy, just to warn you. This is what the exterior of our home currently looks like:
A New Roof
This all started by us deciding that we needed to re-roof our house. We built our home eleven years ago and when we did so we paid the extra money to put on the ‘extra heavy duty’ shingles that are supposed to last 30 years… Well, we didn’t take into account the amount of wind we deal with (so much that they plopped a wind farm all around us a couple years ago). We regularly find shingles laying in the yard that have been blown off. It’s not good. In the last couple of years we have found a couple of water spots appearing in the ceiling upstairs where water has been able to work it’s way in.
We spend quite a bit of time traveling around Texas for our livestock venture and when doing so I always admire the metal roofs. I love them! I think they are so clean and crisp and classy. Considering the issues we have had with the shingles I was able to convince Dale that we should re-roof the house with a metal roof. It took us several months to find a contractor willing to take on the project and one that we are confident will do quality work. We were able to find that contractor and he and his crew are incredibly professional and pay close attention to detail. Finding a good contractor means paying the price – the price of time and waiting. We chose the contractor last summer and the project was just started last week. I know it is going to be worth the wait though and I’m excited to share with you guys the finished product… in about a month. Today though I am going to show you my examples of what we will be pulling together’ These are some examples of the galvalume metal roof we chose:
It starts out pretty bright and shiny, but within a couple of years it will fade out and begin to patina. If you look at the right slope of the tallest peak of our house in the first picture above you can see where a section of roof has been installed (as well as the front eyebrow section above the scaffolding). With the choice of that roof color the whole color scheme of the house needed to be updated. It is currently a cream color with taupe trim. There isn’t too much siding that is painted, as most of the house is brick or stone. The brick is a lighter neutral color with a chalky look to it. The stone is a ‘southwest-ish’ color scheme – light brown, dark brown and reddish tones. Unfortunately, I haven’t ever liked the stone color. It was challenging to try to pick the option that would match with the brick when looking at one foot square samples. We failed, terribly!
Lime Wash
That is going to change though! We will be lime washing the cultured stone a white tone. I am really excited for this part to happen – almost as excited as I am about the metal roof. I’ve researched quite a bit about white washing brick and while doing so came across a product called Romabio that is a slaked lime. It claims to be a better product and longer lasting than white washing with a latex paint. Here are some examples of what the lime wash will look like:
Paint Colors
The little bit of siding there is will be painted a colonial/slate blue color and the trim will be painted white. Here are some examples of this color combination:
Finding the right blue color proved to be a little bit challenging. I went to several different paint stores and looked through samples, having a few colors mixed up in sample sizes and painting them on 4′ square sheets of wood so that I could really get a feel for the color and how it looked up against the brick. I was searching for a blue that is not too dark, but not too light. As well as not too blue. I want the perfect balance of blue-gray… The final two colors I was deciding between are both Valspar colors. The first is called Cobalt Canon and the second is Night View. I ended up choosing the Cobalt Canon. These pictures are of the two colors, the Cobalt Canon is on the left and the Night View is on the right:
Garage Awnings
In addition to the roof and color change we will be adding a metal eyebrow/awning over the garage doors. Here are some examples of what this will look like:
Garage Doors
And lastly, we will be changing out our plain white garage doors for wood carriage style garage doors that will look something like this:
I would also like to switch out our front door for an antique wood double door. That is going to take some searching to locate and probably won’t be something easily found. Fingers crossed we get lucky!
I hope you had a great holiday weekend and your shorter week speeds by so you can enjoy another weekend. We had a fun-filled weekend showing livestock, having a girl’s afternoon hitting some Memorial Day sales and then a cook-out and afternoon of swimming yesterday. Our two summer interns arrived Sunday evening. These boys are family to us, not just interns. We love them dearly and are so happy to have them back for another summer. It’s going to be a great summer!
If you enjoy home/decor post you might enjoy this post about building a mirrored barn door.
