Goodbye Yellow Brown House

I had it all backwards. I’ll admit I, I’m not always right, in fact, I’m always learning. When we painted our last home, it completely changed my perspective of it. We waited over two years to paint it, focusing on the inside first. I don’t regret doing so, because we spent countless hours inside those walls, but I always felt myself apologizing for the exterior. As they say, “first impressions are everything” & there wasn’t anything impressive about the exterior of our old home – before we painted it. When it was complete, I felt complete. A sense of pride & accomplishment. I loved driving home & pulling into our driveway.

When we purchased our yellow & brown Tudor this summer, I felt that same feeling in my gut. Seeing an exterior that needed so much work, I was immediately overwhelmed every time I entered our home. We decided to do it a little different this time, painting the exterior first. Okay, we painted the interior first, but we committed to painting the exterior before we did any major renovations inside & I’m thankful we did! Taking care of the exterior issues & painting it to a pristine & neutral color palette set the tone for inside our home – similar to an invitation. {Below, pre-landscaping}

I do not take color palettes lightly. It’s a huge commitment that takes a lot of consideration. Tudor paint colors are tricky because the trim is equally as important as the base color. I may have tested 7 combinations, 12 paint colors onto our home before finally making a decision. Combined with yelling at woodpeckers all day, I’m sure our neighbors think the new people from Kansas are one flew over the cuckoo’s nest. What color did we decide on? Paint combo #2, you know, the colors we selected the first of 4 times to the store. Exterior paint colors vary significantly with the time of day, depending on how the light hits it and the colors above and below it were too grey, which originally made it stand out in a negative way. Eventually, I had Chris test the colors on their own and I immediately knew that it was exactly what we were looking for.

I worried, I texted, phone a friend & finally decided before Chris gave up on me. I wanted to retain the original character of the brick, but also had to tie in the grey roof with green undertones. When I pulled in the driveway last night, I realized it was exactly the color palette I had hoped for. Whew! What a sigh of relief!

To make the Tudor a little more timeless and charming, we chose base and trim colors that were only slightly different. We selected Sherwin Williams Everyday White and Sherwin Williams Realist Beige. To save money, I had Lowe’s make them with Valspar’s satin exterior paint.

If course there’s always plenty to do, but I feel more at ease knowing that our home is protected from the elements this upcoming winter. We look forward to adding a lot of landscaping, light fixtures and planters in the future. I’m going to focus on the interior for now, one project at a time.

Oh, and those pesky, but adorable woodpeckers? So far so good. Fingers crossed.

You can see all of our home before and afters here!

Julie