Painting the exterior of our 1930s house

Two months ago we planned to spend around £1000 on removing the concrete in our garden and replacing it with some sort of seating area. It was just supposed to be the beginning of improving the exterior of our house. As it became clear that lockdown was here to stay and we realised how much money we could save this spring and summer our plans began to snowball. We decided to spend more and do more: we repositioned the garden fence and added a side access gate, Jules dedicated himself to building a big deck, we created a pergola in the garden and then there was a pause…

Basically, Jules has finished the deck base (which is the biggest part of the process) but we heard that the deck boards we ordered were delayed by three weeks. At the same time we were discussing the fact that we need to fix the guttering on our house and that led to the idea of painting the house at the same time (I’m not sure what the connection there was!). As soon as we saw this house it was something that we have been very keen to do – Jules in particular finds the brown pebbledash very depressing. In fact, I still look at the estate agent details of our house which led with a picture of the exterior and I can’t believe I clicked through to look at more!

The estate agent pic of our house

Anyhoo, it makes perfect sense to paint the house before the deck boards go on as the house will need to be scaffolded and putting that on top of a deck is tricky because of the weight plus the risk of paint spattering on it.

The brilliant Jimi from J A Whitney Building Contractors, who painted the interior of our house, is doing the paint job. The scaffolding will be erected today and we will get the guttering fixed at the same time as the drips will ruin the new deck at the back.

It is a very big expense at £2200, including scaffolding for three sides of the house. However, I think the impact of the change will be huge and it would be such a shame to live here for another five years, get it done then and look back and wish we’d done it now when we had the chance.

I’m really excited to see the beginnings of the paint job. I think I will paint the front door as a temporary measure as the white paint makes the old uPVC door look worse in a way.

I will write another post to show you what we will do to the house to soften the white and the plans for the front garden. I can’t believe how many changes we are making at this crazy time – it is certainly a good distraction!

Katy x

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1 Comment

  1. 8th May 2020 / 3:29 pm

    Wow!! what a pretty looking house you have!!

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