After weeks of painting, we finally have the garage painted in what will be the final colors for the house. OK, I admit I am lying a bit here...we aren't quite finished; I am not showing you pictures of the side of the garage that had a separate entry door that had been glued and boarded shut and also had varmint chew holes in it. I haven't finished painting the french door that is going to replace it, so the pictures of that side will be forthcoming at a later date.
Below see the pictures of the garage as it originally was...actually, not quite like it was when we bought the house; the garage door used to be the same color grey as the rest of it, and the bottom panel had a huge varmint hole chewed into it (ie; big enough to admit a racoon). My husband made a replacement panel this spring and that is when the garage door was painted white. Also, the picture of the side of the garage was taken after I had started priming the soffits (they used to be grey just like the rest of the garage) and I had already primed the window frames (they used to be teal). If you look really closely at the picture of the front of the garage you can see the spot where we took the mailbox off, only to uncover the fact that the garage used to be painted aqua. I've tried imagining our entire house as it once was...an aqua monstrosity. Thankfully, I just as quickly erased those mental pictures.
Below are the new garage colors (which will also be the colors we will paint the house with). The dark slate blue doesn't show up too well here. There are actually 8 different paint colors visible in these pictures. Most of you will likely have very little trouble counting 6, some will notice evidence of the 7th, and I bet pretty much everyone will have difficulty finding all 8. To help you find them all, the colors used are: dark slate blue, bright white, linen white (a creamy yellow white), deep buff yellow, creamy beige, brick, olive, and maroon. The neighbors (who beforehand looked appalled when I told them that I was going to be painting the garage 8 or 9 different colors) have been raving over the color combination. Pretty much everyone is surprised there are actually 8 colors on there though...and it isn't because any of the colors really look alike. It is just because they harmonize well together. The only color that is going to change is the brick color along the edge of the window sill...it will be changed to a darker brick color (that particular color will be used to paint the foundation of the house, and I am not happy with how light it currently looks when it is put in contrast with the whites and the dark blue).
Painting took a lot longer than expected because the first color of blue we painted it turned out to be very violet when the sun hit it (but looked like a nice dark slate blue in the shade). Also, the placement of the various trim colors took some fiddling to get them all to balance well with each other. A few parts of the garage now have literally 8 coats of new paint on them because of all the trial and error.
I think the lace curtains in the windows make the garage tie in better to the main house (which has lace curtains on the lower floor). It is kind of wierd though to be in the garage working on a project surrounded by old dirty garden tools and the like, with lace curtains gracing the windows.
I also bought a copper antiqueing kit from Home Depot and brought new life to our old mailbox which was all rusted out (you can see the mailbox to the left of the garage door). I am very pleased with how it turned out and how it ties in with the colors on the garage.
Damn, I just noticed in these pictures (that were taken today) that I forgot to take the masking tape off of the eavestroughs. Something to do tomorrow...
Now all we need to do is move on to fixing up the rest of the house:
