We're Still in Shock after Painting Our House Exterior.

Finito! Our exterior house painting is completed! All we did was paint, but the house looks drastically different.

Although we had mockups to give us an idea of how it might turn out, we still can’t believe how good it looks in person. Pictures don’t do justice to just how dark and dingy it looked before.

Painter painting front of house — *How we chose our **exterior paint** colors!*

The guys have been hard at work. You can already see

how big a difference

the white trim is going to make instead of the dark brown! The house is looking happier already.

EXTERIOR HOUSE PAINTING STORY:

THE GARAGE DOOR AS A PAINT TESTER.

Here’s where we’re at with the garage door:

1. We decided we liked a dark color best. (It draws less attention to itself.)

2. However, I was 99% sure a dark color wouldn’t look right on ours. (And I know why. But we’ll discuss that another time.)

3. Problem was, I still REALLY wanted a dark color to work. (You know when your head and your heart aren’t on the same page?)

Yep,

HEAD = “Dark garage door won’t work, Jess. Give it up.”

HEART = “But I looove the idea of a dark color on our garage door!”

EXTERIOR HOUSE PAINTING STORY:

THE GREAT GARAGE PAINT COMPROMISE.

So here’s how we compromised for my head & heart:

We knew we had to get a new garage door anyway. (Another story.)
So we figured “We’ll have them paint the old one a dark color, then we’ll really see in person how it looks before getting the new one installed.”

(And yes, I did a couple Photoshop renderings of what a dark garage door might look like, BUT THOSE ARE JUST PICTURES, PEOPLE! My heart still wasn’t convinced. It was clinging onto the dark garage door idea.

Thus, we let the house painters do the “test” paint on the garage door:

house painted with grey garage doors white trim and light grey stucco — *Our **no-grass** front yard!*

Yep. Heart gave in. Heart had to cringe and bow to Head’s “I told you so.”

The dark grey isn’t the greatest. For several reasons.

You win, head.

On the bright side, I did learn by making mistakes I’ll never make again. (What doesn’t kill me…)

The rest of it was gorgeous. We are SO happy with our house painting color choices for the trim and stucco. I mean, does that look better OR DOES THAT LOOK BETTER!?!

before after photo of house with brown trim to whit trim and cream stucco to grey stucco — *I will never get over the power of paint!*

EXTERIOR HOUSE PAINTING STORY:

NEW GARAGE DOORS INSTALLED.

We didn’t have to live with the grey for long. Our new garage doors came in, and they’re white. (We can paint them, though. That’s always a possibility.)

While we like the look of windows in the garage door, we purposefully didn’t get them on ours. We understand that windows in the garage door are usually preferable (mostly for curb appeal), but Matt and I would add the caveat that that’s true IF the positives outweigh the negatives.

For this house, there were more negatives with windows (we’ll explain why another time). We’re THRILLED with our new garage doors and what they do for us!

front house view with white trim white garage door and grey stucco — **Our European courtyard cafe!**

After it was painted, especially the first few times we came home, we’d get a little shock at first sighting the house. It’s so dramatically changed! Neighbors and walkers-by have gushed to us about the improvement, and we’ve had to agree.

(Now I’m nudging you with my elbow.) Eh? Eh? Notice the no-grass front yard up there? All the plants are settling in and growing! I’ve been pruning my olive tree babies so they’ll grow taller, faster.

Several of you liked the yellow door, so I want to mention the following: