skip to main |
skip to sidebar
we have gotten quotes (within $750 of each other) from two different painters for the exterior of our house, which we're hoping to get started on at the end of this month. they will strip/scrape/sand as necessary (not down to bare wood), prime, caulk and paint - one coat of primer and two coats of finish. the quotes were good and both painters come highly recommended, and we're excited to get the house painted - and not worry every time it rains about our siding & trim & new windows.
our problem is deciding what color to paint the house! right now it looks like we're going for the camouflage look...
from upper left, the colors are by sherwin williams: connected gray, svelte sage, avocado (off historic preservation palette), ancient marble, and some brown color i forgot the name of (also off the historic preservation palette). the two trim colors are alabaster and classic white (the creamier color on the right). the window is painted urbane bronze on the left and the bottom right corner is also alabaster.
originally we were thinking a two tone (top half of house painted a different color from bottom half, since we have the trim band that divides the house) - connected gray on top and svelte sage on the bottom with cream trim and bronze windows. we put those samples up and it turns out to look almost exactly like our neighbor's house. so we negated those colors. so we're testing some more colors, but not sure about these either...
avocado w/ classic white (cream) trim & urbane bronze windows:
ancient marble w/ alabaster trim & windows:
(need a 2nd coat of alabaster to make it look whiter like photo above)
we tried out the ancient marble because we thought about repainting the house white, but the four houses across the street are white, and our neighbor's neighbor's house is white also, so we didn't want to go white. ancient marble is a couple shades off of white, but the white (alabaster) trim still pops against it.
the avocado comes off sherwin williams historic preservation palette, and the chip looks olive, especially against other greens, but it looks really green on the house! it's a very cool/funky color, which i like, but i worry that it might be a bit much on the entire house.
so, we're confounded. what color to paint the house? do we do a two-tone? try more samples? any thoughts/opinions/inspiration pics would be greatly appreciated!
and the winner is....
colorado gold vein! (this is our actual slab!) it's stunning! i am absolutely giddy over the deal i just got, but don't want to jinx it so i'll spill the details after this puppy is installed.
funny thing - i got pricing on several different varieties of white marble from four different local dealers/installers, and in every case the domestic varieties were more expensive than the international varieties (imported from italy & greece). how does that happen?
anyway...i can't stop looking at this picture. it's dreamy...
not-so-dreamy update:
apparently that slab above had some "unsightly scratches" so now this is our slab:
not quite as nice, but still pretty.
update #2:
they ordered that dreamy first slab before they found out about the marks in it, and couldn't cancel so it arrived in charleston today. i went to check it out - and i'm working on trying to embrace imperfection, so i approved the slab. most of the marks will diminish with the honing process, and they said they'll work to locate them where they'll be minimally noticeable. they said they could rush another slab from atlanta, and their supplier sent pictures of two others for me to choose from, but none were as soft and pretty as the first one. so, we're back to that, and i'm ok with a few minimal scratches. it's going to happen eventually anyway.
as far as the deal, we're under contract and we've paid our deposit so they can't take it away from me now. ;) the two other quotes i got for colorado gold vein were for $135/sf and $6400 installed (we have about 42sf total counting the backsplash). in other words, it wasn't even an option - i was going to go with the carrara or alabama white - until we got our 4th quote. the installer we went with quoted all of the marbles below (except statuary) at the same price - and it's less than half of those first two quotes. yay for architects discounts!
we got a window quote, and yikes! shocking. this quote was for top-of-the-line marvin clad wood windows (primed wood interior and aluminum clad exterior) - and was for contractors pricing plus an architects discount...but it was still about 1.5-2x what we were thinking. but we've recently been talking about doing all wood windows instead - they will look better and maintain the integrity of our 1935 house. yes, they're more maintenance, and we have to paint them, but on the plus side, they're less expensive than clad... and we just feel like its the right thing to do. so, we'll get a couple more quotes.
sorry i haven't updated with the weekend's pictures yet - i haven't had a chance to because monday was anthony's birthday! anyway, just wanted to post something, so we've been meeting with subcontractors to get estimates, and we're anxiously waiting for those to come in. we met with a plumber, a framer, a roofer and two hvac reps. we got the plumber's number and one of the hvac guy's numbers but we're eagerly anticipating the roofer and framer's numbers. keeping our fingers crossed that they're within our budget!
they're ripping us off! the insurance companies, that is. sucks to live in a hurricane-prone area post-katrina. i've been getting quotes from the few insurers that will still write policies for charleston - and it's not pretty. we're looking at somewhere between $2000 - $2600 annually, depending on what deductible we choose and how much replacement cost coverage we want. i actually got one quote for $4500! crazy!
i guess some areas of the country have high taxes...we have low taxes but high insurance.
it's worth it to live in charleston though!
