So a little back story, when we purchased our house there was this super ugly black stain on the white trim--tar from a roofing project gone awry I suppose.
See that? I do too :(
At first glance it looked as though the substance could simply be scrapped off--not so. After a few failed attempts, someone suggested that we use gasoline to "work" it off. That approach only loosened the tar enough to magnify the problem. Instead of just the ugly black stain we now had a muddy brown haze going around it as well. So much for that! With every outdoor project that we took on our house began to look better and better, but that stupid tar splatter had become the bane of my existence, overshadowing every last one of our efforts. No matter what we did to try to improve our curb appeal my eyes always settled on that horrific bold stain. It looked sloppy. It looked a mess. It irritated my very soul. Who would carelessly drip a substance onto a house and not even try to get it up? Someone trifling, that's who...but that's beside the point.
I finally decided that enough was enough, I couldn't take it anymore; we were going to have to take our chances with painting the trim ourselves. Awhile back we were quoted a price for well over $200 for the job , needless to say I didn't think that was a fair price. I also didn't think that we could tackle the project ourselves. So it sat and I stewed. I hated pulling up to the house to see that obnoxious stain. If I were tall enough and strong enough, I am sure there was a time or two that I would have just ripped down the whole thing in disgust.
Enter the weekend: on a whim I decided to go get some paint. Sure, it wasn't like the hubby was in love with our rickety old ladder, but he was more than capable of rising to the challenge. I had my concerns (we never did anything like this before) but something had to be done, right? Besides, I told myself, it wasn't like the trim could look any worse! Could it....?
Because it was a small project I went for my trusted, tried, and true sample paint (I will never buy anything larger again unless I absolutely have to).
We used Behr indoor/outdoor paint in the satin finish. The sample bottle was so small that it was almost laughable, but don't sleep on it, it was enough to do the trick!
Here's what the bottle looked like, except of course, ours was satin that could be used for the exterior.
This may sound like a given, but please, please, please...when painting outdoors make sure that you get exterior paint. It may cost a bit more, but you'll come out cheaper in the long run rather than being stuck with a ruined paint job or having to paint again because your paint didn't hold up to the elements. And did I mention that this sample paint only cost a little over 3 bucks?! You can't beat that with a stick.
And so the adventure began: Project Peace of Mind:
We had to make sure that we covered the area (we used a plastic drop cloth). All we needed was white paint getting on the black roof...that would have just about sent me over the edge!
And there he is righting the wrong! :-) To say that I was pleased would be an understatement.
I'm not sure why it didn't dawn on us before, but for some reason we thought that we would be able to just paint over the black section. Naturally, we had to paint the entire trim in order for it not to look like a white-out correction. In the end it came out nice! Here's a close-up.
Much better wouldn't you say? :)
* Well, shall we pour out a little liquor for the tar?* All in all, I'm satisfied with our short-term fix and very happy that's over...now what's next? :-D
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