I rarely post my personal projects but since I moved into a new house  9 months ago I started posting to my instastories some of my renovations. I decided I better start documenting them on my blog as well. Partially for myself and for anyone else considering these types of projects.

First off, I’m just an amateur having a good time making changes to my house. I’m not afraid of a little work. That being said, I definitely underestimated what it would take to paint my house.

If you have painted brick before, comment below. You can also see all my in process videos on my instagram feeds (in particular at @carinagardnerdesigns).

Here’s a little video I put together that will help you see what I did on weekend one. Josh helped me do a lot of the top of the house (I’m scared of heights), but I did get up there to hand paint a few areas.

Here is a before picture of my house.

The brick needed washing and cleaning. It wasn’t too hard with a pressure washer. However, the stucco had old iyy stuck to it and it was a beast to work with. I spent 8 hours cleaning the back of my house from a ladder. I couldn’t reach the ivy on the back side of the house. I”ll be using a boom lift on week 2 to get to that.

I love the look of ivy, but now that I have had to clean it off, I won’t let it grow on this house!

The brick needed primer first, which I put on after 2 prep days. I bought my sprayer from Home Depot (This is NOT a sponsored post, BTW). I ended up with Magnum 5X, which was about $350. I highly recommend this for brick. I originally thought I was going to just roll it (ya, that wasn’t going to work).

As for paint color, I was trying to decide between alabaster, white dove, and swiss coffee. I went with swiss coffee because of my dark brown roof. Jury’s still out on whether I chose the right white. I thought I wanted it warm but I’m not sure that I love the way it looks at all points in the day. If you are looking for a truer white, I would recommend white dove. If you like this creamier look, check out swiss coffee.

I ended up painting about 2-3 coats of the swiss coffee on the front of the house and most of the bottom of the house.

I decided a few months ago on a blue on my front door. I simply taped paint chips on the door and looked at it at different points in the day.

Feel free to comment below whether you have painted stucco and brick before!

I’ll post before and after pictures in a week when I finish the house!

Here are some of the things I have left to do:

1. 1. Columns Redone
   2. Paint the backdoor
   3. Prep and clean up of the back side of the house
   4. Paint the top of the house

1. Clean up of the eaves and rain gutters

So that was a quick look at week 1. Hope you enjoyed this!