I fell in love with our home at first sight. It was built in 1983 and was in need of a little tender loving care. But you know how it is . . . the potential of creating a phenomenal space, and then realizing I have champagne dreams with a beer budget. My husband, Jimmy, has a strict budget for everything. He is the sensible one that keeps a tight reign on the purse strings.
The first thing we wanted to do was update the brick. It seemed as though we were having to pressure wash the exterior on a regular basis. Even after a good wash, the brick still appeared dingy. So we looked into having the brick covered with stucco. But I’m not well versed in this process, and I couldn’t be sure if I would get a good deal. This option was also a little pricey, so we quickly looked for another solution.
And then it happened! We were watching Fixer Upper with Chip and Joanna Gains. They changed the whole appearance of a home by applying a technique called German Smear. We looked at each other, and said in unison, “That is what we need to do,” it’s perfect. German smear is a way of antiquing your home’s brick siding with mortar. This technique is notable for adding an old-world masonry look to your house. We didn’t want to paint the brick, so this would be perfect. It is like white washing the brick with a mortar-like solution. Here are a few pictures of what it looked like in stages.
I was on my head to add stone to the front of the house. So we might as well get it all done at the same time. The question was, how much? Too much stone would be overkill and way too expensive. So I played around with photoshop and added stone in various combinations until Jimmy and I agreed on a design. We decided that the stone looked best on the front section surrounding the door. We selected a natural limestone called Austin Stone. This was a perfect compliment to the German smear finish on the rest of the house..
This seemed to take forever to finish. They couldn’t finish fast enough. I wanted to see the finished product as soon as possible. I don’t know about you, but I can be very impatient at times.
They finally finished, and I couldn’t be happier with the results. We took the lights that were there and painted them to match the trim.
Now that this part has concluded, we are going to revamp the driveway and get rid of dying plants. I have looked all over Pinterest and Houzz for ideas. But that will be in another post. Bye for now.