Painting the Storefront

When we purchased the house it was beige. Beige exterior, beige on every single wall inside, and a beige garage. We knew right away that one of our first tasks would be to “un-beige” the house.

We decided to tackle the front of the house last fall. It was a simple project that had a lot of impact. We looked at lots of photos of historical storefronts, and decided to go with a simple dark grey colour. It would offset our storefront window, and look nice with the brick under it.

The project took two days, one day cleaning everything, the second taping and painting. We also have two doors at the front of our house which confuses delivery people to no end. Its actually a pretty smart design, as we are a row house of sorts, there is no place to store our garbage and recycling cans out of sight, other than having to keep them in the garage, and wheel them around the block on garbage day. So they built in a “utility room” into the front of our house. Its great, but confusing! So we wanted to make the door to it disappear, and make our front door stand out. We painted out the utility room door the same colour as the house, and our front door in a bright red.

We used Behr Premium Plus Ultra Paint + Primer and it painted beautifully! The door took three coats, but the house only took two.

Without further adieu, here are the before and afters!

Front of a house
Front of house before.
Front of house after painting
Front of house after.
Door before painting
Door before.
Door after
Door after

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SOURCE LIST:

Materials:
Behr Premium Plus Ultra Exterior Satin in Cracked Pepper: Home Depot
Behr Premium Plus Ultra Exterior Semi Gloss in California Poppy: Home Depot
2″ Frog Tape: Home Depot

Tools Used:
Paint Brushes, Trays, Roller, Foam Roller, Tarps, Newspaper, Ladders, Cleaning Supplies

Difficulty Level (on a scale of 1-5):

How it all started

A year and a half ago, El Granto and I purchased our first home. A 100 year old storefront in downtown Toronto. It was recently converted, had a beautiful reno, was ideally located, had a yard for a future dog and a garage for El Granto’s motorcycle. Perfect. We signed the papers, and moved in a month later. Then the skylight leaked, the sink leaked, the brand new dishwasher didn’t work, the basement leaked, the storefront window leaked and the icing on the cake; the dryer vent leaked into our bedroom ceiling making for a hell of a mess days before Christmas. We were in trouble. Luckily we received some awesome help from Mike Holmes and his Holmes Inspection crew.
Here is our story!

Watch Moisture Madness
Watch our episode “Moisture Madness” on hgtv.ca

 

Welcome!

Welcome!

let me introduce myself, I am Kristen. I have an awesome husband named El Granto, a crazy puppy named Odin, and we all live in a 100 year old Storefront Conversion in downtown Toronto.

Wedding shot of Kristen and El Granto
We’re so cute 🙂

This will (hopefully) be a place for our adventures in home ownership, raising a puppy, living and working in an urban environment.
Our Storefront Life!

Cheers!
-Kristen