White Painted House

When we moved into our house last October, I knew right away that our house needed to be painted. It was a dirty, drab light brown color and was begging to be freshened up with a coat of bright white paint.

Here's what the house looked like when we saw it for the first time late last summer...

And here's what it looks like today...

Can you believe the difference? And literally all it took was gallons of white paint, some patience, and lots of motivation on my part to get it done.

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Most of the house exterior is stucco with some wood siding where the front porch is. After some research, we went with Valspar Duramax exterior paint from Lowes. Painting on stucco is not for the faint of heart. It really soaks up paint and takes a lot of time to get into all the texture. We used a paint roller made for rough surfaces, as well as a wide paint brush for the edges. We considered using a paint sprayer, but we would have needed to cover all the windows and it would have taken a lot more prep work. We would have needed to rent a sprayer, so it would have cost more as well. The wood siding needed two coats of paint, but the stucco only needed one.

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I painted most of the house myself, with husband helping to get the really high spots. Extension ladders make me pretty nervous! I was able to climb out the second story windows and paint the dormers pretty easily because of the cape cod style of the house with a sloped roof in the front and back.

I painted the trim and windows using the same paint as the house, making it an easier project. I did need to use primer on the windows because they were a dark brown color and hard to cover with white.

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The exterior of the house still needs a lot of loving. We pulled out old shrubs and added flower beds to the front and left side of the house, but haven't done much to the back. I have so many dreams for this little farm house! There is a peach grove in the front of the house and an apple grove in the back. It is a dream!

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As you can see in the photo above, the peaches are almost ready to be picked! We would like to add shutters to the windows, and the house needs a new roof in the next few years. There are lots of projects to be worked on, but just giving the house a coat of white paint made an incredible difference! And the fact that we could do it ourselves with minimal expenses (besides paint) was so rewarding!