PATTYCAKES

We bought our house in 2003. I hated the color of the paint but you know home owner's associations and their tight restrictions not to mention the big job of repainting. Though the house was built in 2001, I always thought the brown trim on the house was from back in the70's. But we lived with it until we started seeing paint flaking off the stucco and patches of fading stucco all over the house that gave it a sort of camouflage look. We are the oldest house in the neighborhood as we were the original model home so we knew it was a matter of time before the association gestapo came around with a letter telling us to comply with keeping our house paint up. Oh how I lamented my days in MO where you had vinyl siding and brick and very, very little exterior paint!!! Stucco is so hard to paint!!! Well, Tim and I thought this would be a good learning experience and decided to do it ourselves. OK, so we are cheap. In the end, though, while it took about two weeks of pretty much nonstop work, I think we did a pretty good job. We set a trend for the neighborhood and others are following with painting of their own. NO one, not one other person, has attempted to tackle it themselves. In the end, when asking people what they paid, I realized we saved virtually nothing in cost doing it ourselves but what we did get out of it was two coats of high quality paint that hopefully will last more than seven years like those that sprayed a thin coat on. But, I like the color better considering color restraints.Guess how many gallons of paint it took? 45!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!