Redo Big Blue DIY Exterior Painting: Two Years Later
Was it worth it? How is it holding up? Would we do it again? What would we do differently?
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Remember when Big Blue was indeed very blue? Like brightest blue in the crayon box blue? Like, we just can't overstate how blue Big Blue was? Well it has now somehow been 2 years since we tackled painting the exterior. Where has the time gone?! It's easy for me to remember this anniversary because we painted it on my birthday. Riley felt bad that we spent the whole day painting rather than celebrating, but truly it was the best birthday gift! I thought now might be an appropriate time to reminisce and answer some of the common questions we get asked about the whole endeavor!
How is it holding up?
One of our biggest concerns about painting our home dark was the maintenance. It's no secret that dark paint doesn't hide dirt nearly as well as a mid tone or light paint. We live in dry, dusty Idaho so this is a real issue and it is true. By the time we get through winter and spring, our house is visibly dusty. I do take note of it, but I can't say it drives me crazy. Honestly, I am still just SO in love with the colors that I mostly still just gasp every time I come around the corner and see it standing in all it's glory! The dust has lead us to wash the exterior of our house each year, which has surprisingly become one of my absolute all time favorite rituals here. I truly love it so much it will need to have its own blog post some day, but suffice it not say, it fills me with gratitude and also gives us an opportunity to examine every inch of our house to check for any problem areas that might need some extra attention.
One other concern we had was that dark paint will fade quicker than a lighter paint. So far, we have not found any noticeable fading, but we are only two years in still. We did choose to go with Sherwin Williams top of the line Resilience paint for this project and have ZERO regrets about that decision. It seems to be paying off. Our paint still looks good as new!
Was it worth it?
This is a project that would have cost us at least $5k - $8k. We painted the whole thing for about $1200, paint, supplies, and everything. Full transparency, we were able to get a discount on paint through a family friend. However, even without that discount we would have still saved $3k - $5k so that felt pretty worth it to us!
Would we ever paint a house again?
Obviously there are multiple factors that would play into us deciding whether or not to take on another exterior painting project in the future. Finances, the value of our time, the physical capabilities of our bodies. But I would absolutely be open to it again! Painting our exterior was honestly so much less daunting than we were expecting. I think the fact that we were coming off of painting almost the entirety of our interior by hand (walls, ceilings, and contrast trim) definitely helped in that area. The interior was such a massive project that it really made the exterior feel so much more doable.
I will say that using a high quality paint and a nice paint sprayer was key. A friend of ours offered to let us use their Graco Magnum X7 paint sprayer and we loved it so much we eventually ended up buying a similar paint sprayer ourselves. This was the paint we used! All in all it took us, and a few incredible family members who offered help, about 2 days to prep the house and 2 days to spray, which we split up between 4 different Saturdays.
Is there anything you would do different next time?
I've been sitting on this one for a while now to make sure my answer is an honest one. With so many of our other projects I finish and have a running list of what I would do differently the next time around. But with this exterior painting project I think I can honestly say that we are really happy with the way we did things. We did a ton of research beforehand and tried our best to avoid cutting corners and we are still in awe of the finished product!
Now my turn to ask the questions!
Have you ever painted the exterior of your home? Did you hire it out or did you do the work yourself? Would you do it again? What do you wish you would have done differently? Would you be interested in a thorough, step-by-step breakdown of how we painted it? If so, let me know if the comments or send me a DM on Instagram!
-Kams
SOURCES
Benjamin Moore Paint Colors
Siding - Wrought Iron
Porch and Trim- Ashwood Moss
Window Trim - Elmira White
Sherwin Williams Exterior Paint
Graco Magnum 262805 X7 Cart Airless Paint Sprayer
Magnum Project Painter Plus Paint Sprayer