Painting the Exterior

The first coat of color was painted on the house today! The colors reflect Victorian themes typically found in houses called "Painted Ladies". Victorian era houses, especially wood and stick homes, were painted in vibrant color schemes that enriched the details such as ginger bread styling typically found in folk Victorian or vernacular styled houses.
The porch decking was also painted and what a difference a little color makes. Notice the color on the porch ceiling, its a pretty sky blue. The word is that traditionally houses in the south typically would have their porch ceilings panted a sky blue color to confuse wasps from building nests underneath porches.
The skirting around the house was installed a few days ago and that also received a couple of coats of paint. Vents still need to be installed and that will be done in the coming days.
We're reaching a point in the project where most of the work is now touch ups and detail work on the structure. We are close to the finish line. We still need to get final inspections on electrical, plumbing and HVAC system. The front porch roof and work on the drive way need to be worked on but we can feel the end in sight!

House is Primed and Ready

A big milestone in any restoration project is when you get the house coated with primer.   Of course there's a lot of prep work that goes into getting to this point.  Ideally you want to scrape off as much of the old paint and get as close as possible to bare wood. In this case most if not all of the paint had either fallen of over time or had been scraped off in previous attempts.  Lead abatement is always a consideration when working on homes built in the early 1900's however in this case there was so minimal paint on the walls that we did were allowed to use a water method to remove any existing paint. Using a gentle power wash method minimizes dust and aerosols. Any flakes that came off were collected and safely disposed according safety protocols. 
After the cleaning of the house the entire exterior of the house was coated with high grade primer. At this point the house ready for it's colors!