This week has been an exciting week! I have been planning the painting of our exterior home for quite some time and I’m excited the time is finally here! There are a lot of decisions to make when it comes to an exterior design plan… much more than I had originally thought of. So much goes into the details of an exterior… hopefully I can share a little of what I’ve learned.

I have spent hours combing the internet in search of the perfect painted brick combination. One thing that I knew was that I wanted something other than a true white. Refective values of white paint can really make a white house shine and reflect light. With our home in direct sunlight – I knew I would need a toned-down version of white brick. The style of our home is also very traditional. I did not feel that white would be the best compliment to its architecture. I tend to think of a modern farmhouse when I see bright white exteriors.

There were a lot of opportunities to add some personality with painted trim, soffits, and gutters. Playing with all the possibilities in my head left me dizzy! I found a company called Brick & Batten while on Pinterest browsing for painted brick inspiration. I immediately sent in my photos and answered a few initial design questions. My hope was that they could help me bring my vision to life and ease my mind from such a big investment in our home. I had the new mockup of our exterior that you see below in about a week!

The biggest change in our entire exterior is obviously the paint and windows!! This combination is Revere Pewter for the brick and Chelsea Grey for all the trim and soffits. Both colors are really warm and I think will honor the traditional lines of our home.

WINDOWS: I have not decided on replacing windows yet. This is a big expense! I’m still doing research, gathering quotes, and coming up with a final design plan before I make this decision. I DO think that I will update the grid patterns regardless of the final decision on replacing windows.

I went back and forth several times on replacing the gutters (and received several quotes). The final quote I received for painting the gutters hovered around $2,200. The cost to remove and replace all the gutters, downspouts & leaf filters came in at $7,500. This is a large expense – but we felt that it was a sound investment in terms of longevity and future maintenance costs.

I’ll share a full blog post on everything I learned about gutters – which is a lot! The above shows a closeup of gutter helmets which were quite popular 20 years ago. I don’t think they are as popular now and for good reason. The new filters will be much sleeker and will barely be noticeable.

One thing to note is there are a LOT of options for gutter and window colors. I ultimately chose the bronze shown at the bottom right. I think knowing the many options available for various design elements can be really helpful in overall design planning.

Here is the side angle of our home with the entrance that most people use. My first order of business will be to remove the storm door! I plan to replace it with a larger more functional door. My goal is to remove the sidelight and replace the entire 48″ door opening with a large 40″ arched door. This element will match some of the existing arched architecture in our home.

This new side view from Brick & Batten really made my heart sing. Here you can see more of the trim color and what a difference adding in some wood elements will make. These garage doors are a little modern for me – but I think it was a good visual to see what new wood doors will bring to the overall feel of the house.

Although I don’t think new garage doors are in our budget this year, I did find the perfect inspiration for new garage doors (below) when we take that leap. For this year, I’m thinking I might try to do a faux wood look with this painting kit I found on Amazon.

The back of the house is definitely the area that will see the biggest change. The small deck will be eliminated when we renovate our kitchen next year and we have already made some big changes with our landscaping. I hope to have our balcony deck completed in the next month along with new exterior doors leading out to our balcony.

Here’s a before of the backyard. I’m so happy with the progress of just cleaning up the yard and adding fresh sod.

I asked Brick & Batten to help me visualize a glass balcony outside of our bedroom and new black doors. I love being able to see some of these elements visually to help me make bigger decisions.

I’m still finalizing colors and details but I’m off to a good start with an overall theme for our exterior. Here’s a quick design board with colors and design elements. I haven’t made any final commitments for the window colors or lighting but I’ve definitely narrowed it down to the top contenders!

Exterior Masonry Paint: Romabio Masonry Flat tinted to Revere Pewter. I chose to use Romabio after lots of research on exterior brick paints. Look out for a follow-up post talking about this decision and its benefits in more detail!