LA Art Teacher Needs Exterior Design Help!
I was very lucky to buy a home in Los Angeles when the market crashed in 2009. I am 10 minutes from downtown, in woodsy Mt Washington, near an area called Highland Park, which was up and coming when I bought, and now has exploded with restaurant/bars, shops, parks, literally everything. Love my neighborhood and my equity has doubled. But as a busy teacher with a long commute to the West side--I live on the Northeast side--I am STILL fixing up my 50's house. Hoping this will be the year I get all major exterior work done, like painting and landscaping. Just redid the roof and had to do a Cool Roof per LA city codes, so it turned out to be a lighter gray than I expected. All those color reflective particles means color interacts with the sun and there is A LOT of sun shining down on the front of my house. Does look darker in back. Anyway, REALLY need help with a color scheme. Painters coming in 2 weeks. I have original wood siding in front and stucco on the remaining part of house. Deciding whether to add an ipe wooden porch along the front of house as well. Also, that big shadow you see on the left hand front corner of picture is my 100 foot Pine tree!!!! And the reason there is no pathway? I had the original concrete walkway taken out/broken up, (the idea was to repurpose it into an urbanite pathway), but the concrete was so thick, and job ultimately so much harder than it looked, that people I hired never came back to lay it back down for me. Sad but true.
Comments (12)
PRO8 years agoRelated Professionals
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8 years agoI saw a blog the other day with a nice transformation, using behr paint I believe.
Heres the before and after,
I realize her roof is brown, but it's still a neutral to me. Then I see a nice grey walkway. Depending on the overall style you like the walkway can be modern square slabs or even a cobblestone. Landscaping will be fun on this for sure.
katherine purdy thanked Annette Holbrook(z7a)
8 years agoDunn & Edwards has a great color called Antique White. We paired it with Burnt Crimson for our So Cal Spanish house.
katherine purdy thanked 1929Spanish-GW
8 years agolast modified: 8 years agokatherine purdy thanked carolb_w_fl_coastal_9/10
8 years agoThanks to everyone for joining in! Being a homeowner has been quite the adventure!!! Here are some pictures of my house when I purchased it back in 2009....and it's a little painful for me to look at because - as you can see I removed a LOT in the front yard since 2009, some of it good and some of it probably bad. In other words, even if I thought it looked dated and was trying to give it a newer look, it still looks finished as compared to what I have now. The metal awning was first to go - it was like looking through metal bars and losing it made the good light in the south facing LR spectacular light. Still, front of house lost some architectural detail, and looks rather flat and bare now, I think. Also took out the hedge, the gas light fixture (slow leak) , about three Bottle Brush trees that were never tended ( still have a 100 foot Canary Island pine in the front of my yard near the sidewalk street and a 30 foot Bottle Brush) along with the concrete pathway. Remember I had no intention of completely LOSING the concrete walkway, I was just going to repurpose it into urbanite, re-lay it and take it from 1950 into the next century. But guys abandoned me!!!
This last pic is looking out my front window - you can see how deep my front yard is, and the enormous Pine and Bottle Brush near the street and sidewalk.
Lastly, here is the old roof that I just replaced a few weeks ago with a new Cool roof per LA's new saving energy requirements. The right side of the picture shows my attached garage which forms an L shape in the front yard. BTW, I was thinking of staining or painting the brick chimney to blend with the new gray roof.
- 8 years ago
rockybird, the only pic I have of the back of house is this one from 2 weeks ago when I started to paint the back of in primer so I could test out paint samples....out of town right now or I would shoot some more! You can see how dark my roof is in back - and my back yard is almost 10 hours of full sun!
- 8 years ago
Thank you sableincal! I am definitely planning to add curves to walkway, especially since my front yard is so long and deep. Right now, I have an ivy covered fence around entire perimeter, with only an entrance from driveway. Planning to remove fence, and possibly replace it. Add entrances from both sidewalk/street area, and from driveway. If I can get away with not adding a fence I will, as the bids I have received are exorbitant, even for hogwire, as in pic below, and I would rather spend my money on adding a front porch, to add some oomph to my very flat facade. Here are some possible design pics of direction to go in...see below. One more thing, I appreciate the vote for 1929Spanish-GW on ivory paint color, but it appears to be so similar to what I have now, which I am really tired of! So vanilla!!!! Thinking now of Graystone from Benjamin Moore - appears to be an architect choice for best grays, and flattering in all kinds of light.
sableincal