Painting our Brick Home White- Behind the Scenes

Happy Thursday, buddies!

As I mentioned last week, we are painting our house! In case you missed it, we are changing the color of our home from red brick, yellow siding, and burgundy shutters, to all white with black shutters! It is a HUGE change!

I walked through the process of how we chose our exterior color HERE (check it out, I think there are some really great tips!) but we did end up deciding on Benjamin Moore’s Simply White! And for our shutter color, we chose Tricorn Black.

To us, it didn’t have any bold undertones like green or gray, was a softer white so it wouldn’t be blinding in the sun, and just seemed to compliment our home’s existing elements the best.

So, below are some progress photos you have been asking for. And by the end of this week, they should be finished!

It’s still a little surreal that this is all happening. We weren’t really planning on doing this until we saw what a good job Anton from Fox Painting did on our neighbor’s house. And since he was right there, we asked them to come over to give us a quote. We found the quote reasonable, the owner extremely friendly, and it just felt right, so we said yes! And it just took off from there.

The first step in this whole process was to power wash the house. I was surprised by how much dirt came off of our house; things immediately looked brighter. One thing no one was counting on, though, was for the trim around our house to be completely sprayed off.

Whoever initially painted the house didn’t use primer when painting the trim, so that stuff just blew right off causing a huge mess. This wasn’t the first time Anton had seen something like this and just explained that when things aren’t done right the first time, someone down the line pays for it. And I couldn’t even begin to describe to you how thankful I was to see Anton out there with his HVAC cleaning up every bit of chipped-off paint after he was done power washing. That right there let me know we picked the right company to do this job! They also HAND-SCRAPED every remaining bit off of there, too.

But, we were really impressed with how much brighter the house looked once washed!

Next came priming the trim, and caulking every open inch of our house. This was one thing I never even considered when we first set out to have our house painted. I had no idea how much prep work went into this project. You aren’t just paying someone to paint your house. You are paying them to completely seal it, too. Every crack and hole was filled and this took a couple of days to complete because of how thorough they were.

We even had big gaps like this one around our whole house, and Anton took a special kind of foam, put it up inside of there, and then sealed it.

Being an indecisive person, I am so appreciative in how patient Anton is with me. Sometimes, I don’t know if I like something until I see it, so Anton went above-and-beyond in giving me a visual. I wasn’t sure if we should leave the bottom portion of the brick on this side of the house unpainted since we were leaving the step untouched, so Anton painted a little sample for me so that I could decide. And this helped so much! Once I saw it, I knew that it had to be painted, too.

I also appreciate the little details like digging into the ground a bit and painting the brick all the way below so that every part is covered.

And then, I came home one day and the spraying had started! This part goes so quickly, and I can only imagine how satisfying this is to the painters since the previous steps were so time-consuming.

Wanting to ensure every square inch was covered, Anton and Tony took the extra time to back-roll all of the brick instead of just spraying it. This allowed the paint to get into every crevice since brick is so porous.

And I have got to say, our roof is steep and I was so glad we left it to the professionals to be the ones climbing all over it instead of attempting to do it ourselves.

Another detail I never would have even though of is to paint in-between the cracks of the garage doors so that when opened and closed, lines aren’t seen. It’s these details that make all the difference!

This project is pretty close to being complete and I cannot even tell you just how excited I am about it. This has been a vision of ours for a long time, but with it being such a permanent change it has taken some courage to bite the bullet and go with it. As I see it all unfold, I cannot tell you how happy it makes me!

I am going to save the rest of the photos for the final reveal when everything is complete. So, stay tuned!

And if in the Spokane area and looking for a painter, both interior and exterior, Fox Painting is your company. I am absolutely thrilled with their work ethic, attention to detail, and patience. I truly am so very impressed. I must spread the word!

Anton Fox of Fox Painting is licensed, bonded, and insured and comes highly recommended! You can reach him at 509-385-5373 and FoxPaintingWA@gmail.com

And to see more of Anton’s work, check out his Facebook page HERE. (Photos coming soon!)