Last year we renovated the last of a half-dozen decks.
Because this deck is ocean facing and subject to harsh elements, we bit the bullet and had custom stainless steel hangers and stainless screws installed.
Our neighbors built their home four years ago, and all their galvanized deck hardware is deteriorating, so I think we made the right decision.
The previous winter we replaced all the windows on the ocean side of the house -- after having a very eye opening energy audit! You can read all about what to expect from an energy audit, here, and here.
The elements are serious business on the coast. We are already having to replace three year old exterior light fixtures! They are rusting and corroding so badly that several have simply fallen off the house. This one is still hanging on by a thread, but we have found several lying on the ground!
Crazy scary, right? We will be switching out plastic fixtures for all the remaining metal fixtures.
This beach house has been a HUGE project! We bought a derelict old house, and lifted it nine feet, to capture the ocean view. You can read about that here.
With all the remodeling and patching of siding, and window replacements, the exterior of the house was looking, well, kind of like a calico cat! I've been dying to paint and stain the exterior, but we needed to wait until all the windows were replaced and all the decks were renovated, then we needed to wait a full year after the last deck renovation for all the new wood to dry out. It's been almost one year, and we just signed a contract with our painter last week, and he will begin as soon as the weather is good enough! I am so excited not to have a calico house!
Now we need to choose a color scheme. When we first bought the home, I planned to paint the house a pretty sage green, but when my next door neighbors built their home, they used my colors! It would look strange to paint our home the same as theirs. Our neighbors on the other side have a yellow house, so we need a color that will look great against green and yellow and still look good in our overcast northern light.
The Calico Beach House via google maps
Here are some color ideas I've been playing around with using the Sherwin Williams Color Visualizer. Can I just say that I am in love with this tool? This is not a sponsored post -- I just really like their color tool. It is very easy and intuitive to use. It is a bit glitchy, at times, but overall I had a great experience with it. Once you have outlined your color areas, changing colors is a piece of cake. For the first image, I simply grabbed a picture of the house from Google Maps, and played with that. Next, I grabbed some SketchUp images to experiment with.
We have discovered that in our often overcast northern light, pale house colors look dingy and a bit dreary, so we know we need to use darker colors and colors with plenty of saturation.
The first option is a medium dark gray with green undertones, and pops of orange on the main entrance and garage.
The next option is a gray with silver-blue undertones and acid yellow accents.
I love this option, with a dark gray teal on the lower level, and a lighter teal gray on the upper level, with sunny yellow accents.
This option shows a dark gray lower level, with (what is supposed to be) navy undertones and a navy upper level, but I wasn't happy with how the colors rendered. I do like the lime green pops of color, though! Since this is a beach town in the Pacific Northwest, we can get away with bolder color schemes. In fact, subtler color schemes often look a bit dingy in our light.
I think we have settled on using a heavy bodied stain, instead of traditional paint, for the body of the house. Our painter seems to think it will hold up better to our harsh winters, as it permeates the material better. Heavy bodied stains don't flake like paints -- they wear. We get about 90 inches of rain each winter, and driving winds beat the house with sand, so I think a stain will be a better choice than paint. The main drawback of using a heavy bodied stain is the limited color palette. Instead of having hundreds of colors to choose from, there are only a couple dozen choices.
We've still got a few weeks to make a decision, so I will play around a bit more with color concepts, as well as paint some samples on the walls. Do you have a preference? Did you just love any of these concepts? Did you just hate any? Let me know in the concepts.
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Thanks for stopping by!
