This summer I want to work on improving the curb appeal of my house and the first big project is going to be paint. Everyone else seems to love the blue but I feel like it washes out the house and I can’t do any touch ups because the Benjamin Moore place in town can’t seem to color match it.
I know I want to do a grey (but not too light because I think it’ll also tend to wash out) and I want to keep the trim white. Originally I thought I’d need to replace the aluminum siding on the majority of the house but I hear it’s not a terrible material so I’m going to leave it. It does need some patching in places so I’ll probably do that when I replace the trim around the windows.
I’m not planning on leaving that wavy siding that’s up in the eaves. It’s weird and not at all Victorian. The peaks of the eaves are realllly high up off the ground so I figure if I’m going to be up there I want to do something I love.
Fish scales. I’ve loved Victorian houses since a family trip to Duluth, Minnesota (Google it!) years ago and I’ve since fantasized about a pretty Victorian of my own. So this summer, I’m going to be one step closer to that!
My dad thinks I should just do the fish scales in the front eave but two other sides of my house are visible from the street:
The West side
and the East side (where I have the only access to my attic.)
So it seems like if I’m going to do the front I should also do the sides and if I’m already doing three eaves I should finish it off and do the back too
right??
Right.
My first problem is measuring to find out how much material I need to buy. A friend has a ladder that he will loan to me so I can get the new trim up, but how do I calculate the area of each of the eaves from the ground? Seriously, I need to know.
My second problem is picking colors and figuring out what kind of pattern I want to do.
Last week Henry and I took a walk down one of the cutest streets in town where I tried to discretely take cell phone pictures of people’s houses. Luckily nobody came running out to yell at me and I wasn’t contacted by police as a potential burglar. Whew!
Here’s what I found:
I really love this sunburst pattern but I don’t think it’ll work on the big eaves. I’m toying with doing it in the small eave over the front door for something a little different. (PS, I love the face on this huge house but I’m afraid it’ll look a little creepy on mine.)
This house has a muted color scheme (not very Victorian!) and a mixture of scallops and diamonds. I don’t think I love the diamonds.
A lot of the houses on this block have used a striped pattern but I just don’t like it. I prefer a more ombre effect where one color bleeds into the next.
A lot like this!
Now let’s talk colors.
Originally I wanted an orange and yellow scheme but there’s a house a few blocks over from me with those colors already. Does that matter? Will people even notice?
I want vibrant and this would certainly catch people’s attention!
For fun I also tested out a couple of more colors
This one is a lot like the one I showed you above but that house only has a little bit of it (on the sides of that little window) and it looks like the paint is old and they might be doing renovations and could end up changing all the colors…
This one gives me the aquas that I like with a bright pop of green (it’s my favorite right now) that I feel like I can get away with since it’s a Victorian.
If I knew I was going to live in this house forever I would go totally crazy and throw a hot pink up there but I can’t imagine I’ll live in this house for another 20 years and I don’t want to cost myself money if I ever sell.
What do you think? Go super crazy? Stay mostly safe? Any other color suggestions?
I’ll probably be able to milk a whole summer’s worth of posts out of my curb appeal projects, I hope you don’t get sick of them!
-A
good little house 