Firstly we painted the front of the house. Unfortunately our budget wouldn't stretch to rendering the window ledge or reshaping the mouldings, but a splash of paint did wonders.Chosing a colour was a decision that took a while. I wanted a colour that was unique but at the same time, wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb. We spent a long time walking around the local area and taking in the colours our neighbours had used on their houses. We found that there were very few brightly coloured houses, and white or magnolia appeared to be the colour of choice. We decided on Dulux Clouded Pearl 01.
There are a couple of things we learned during this process. The first thing is that you are not limited to the exterior paints that are on the shelf at DIY stores. Dulux can mix any of their colours, as well as match any that you find elsewhere.
Secondly, always get sample pots. Just like interior paint, the paint on the charts differs once on the wall. We picked a few colours, painted two coats and checked them at different times of the day (when the wall was in shade and in direct sunlight).
After this was the front wall; the owners before us had added some cut out blocks on to the original wall and as fashionable as this may have been at the time, it was looking very dated and untidy.
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| An old image from Google street view as I forgot to take a before pic |
Finally, we dug up the concrete paving slabs to add more attractive features. I am not the most green-fingered of people, so we were looking at low maintenance decor. And decided on slate and pebbles for the coverage and a monochromatic colour scheme in the window boxes.
Here is the final product, we are very pleased with the results, it is now finished to the same standard as the interior - all this in two weekends!
Next is the front door - hmmm, what colour do we go for?
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