Selecting Paint Colors

I knew I wanted the house green. I read Bungalow Colors by Robert Schweitzer to get some ideas on how to proceed. His tip: Find 6 base colors that you like, and paint large samples. Decide if you like any of them.  This was about a year ago, so I don't remember the one I picked!!!!!!  But it was one of these. 

More Old Pictures

This picture is facinating to me. Not just because the doggie is soooo cute. My last post showed a picture with windows on the porch, but the original, tapered columns showing. Here, presumably some years later, the original columns were covered up with more linear, modern looking tall columns in a wood tone in an attempt to bring the look of the home into a more mid-century style. A lot of molding was cut in order to accomodate these things. Theses were gone when we moved in, but the cut molding remained.

Old Pictures of the House

Thanks to Art Copper for sending some old family photos. Art grew up in our house. He still comes by the old neighborhood sometimes. The house was sold after Arthur Copper Sr. passed away.

A family portrait in the '50's

1960's-House painted white, windows enclosed the porch

Feb. '64: A living room shot, before the wood was painted white.

To Paint, or What to Paint.

Fully stripped Hobart House, 2011

As I mentioned last post, part of closing our permit for the porch work was to repaint any new or repaired, primed wood. Keep in mind our 8 year old paint job, done by the previous owner, and flipper, was a bad one to begin with, in a color I never liked but grew used to, and in terrible condition, chipping and peeling. Additionally, I always knew I wanted to paint this house green. This was the thought process. Notice how the ideas increase in complexity and, more importantly cost!!

1. Repaint the whole porch in the existing color.

2. Repaint the porch green, knowing a whole house paint job would follow in years to come.

3. Repaint the front of the house.

4. Repaint 3 sides of the house, leaving the back as-is.

5. Just paint the whole darn thing.

6. Just paint the whole darn thing, and do it right, including scraping over 100 years of old, lead-based paint off of the siding.

Guess which option we chose?? The most expensive, of course!!!

New beams and column support on front porch

Scaffolding supports the front porch during the work.

A new beam in place of the hollow box that had been there.

4X4s which will be hidden inside the columns.

Siding and columns removed. Yikes!

This post is long overdue. In November, or December of 2010, we started this project. The purpose was to correct the slight dip in the front porch. The "beam" that stretches the length of the front porch turned out to be a hollow decorative box. Same for the six tapered columns along the front of the house. None of these elements offered any structural support to the porch, hence the sagging effect. To correct this, the columns were opened up, 4X4s sunk into concrete piers under the porch. Also, an engineered beam placed across the length of the porch. Scaffolding was put up to support the porch during this work. It was at this point that one of our neighbors called to report the work to building and safety. We had not pulled a permit for the work. After a bunch of red tape and a few fees, the permit was issued. We obtained approval from the Mills Act (who monitor that everything we do to our house is historically acurate) and found out that the permit would be considered closed when the final painting was done.......that began the painting saga. (More about that in future posts.)

Another challenge was putting all the original siding and wood from the columns back correctly. The columns have a taper to them. They are narrow at the top, and wide at the bottom. Our contractor couldn't quite figure out how to get them aligned so that they didn't look all crooked from the street. Somehow we got it figured out after a bunch of trial and error. Don't assume your contractor will know how to put together what is taken apart! Also, we had to have more trim made to replace that which had been cut away and damaged over the years. (This porch used to be enclosed in windows. Those were removed before we purchased the house. Lots of trim was cut away to allow the windows to sit flush.)

Here's an example of where trim had been cut away.