07
Jul

Exterior Restoration and Painting: Restoration of a Southern Belle

 

Before we moved, our family lived in a victorian home.  These are some of our adventures restoring a Southern Belle…

Exterior Restoration and Painting

Written By: Jim Green

The exterior restoration and painting of the house is now complete. It took several weeks for the repairs and painting to be completed.

Before Picture of the house. Exterior Restoration and Painting-Restoration of a Southern Belle.
Before Picture of the house. Exterior Restoration and Painting-Restoration of a Southern Belle.

A little back story…..A few months ago we were cited for multiple code violations which included inadequate paint cover, broken fascia boards, and broken gingerbread railings. Mind you, we’ve been working on the house consistantly for 3 years, making improvements, fixing building code issues and such. Personally, I’d rather have the house level, stable, able to stand on its own piers with working egresses than “pretty”. Evidently the city codes board figured we had just been “devaluing” the neighboring properties for too long. Compared to neighboring properties they should be happy that the house still has railings, fascia and any paint chips on it. Long story short, the city TIFF program alotted money to our district to fund the Homeowner Improvement Project. The exterior finishes were on our to-do list so we figured we’d take advantage of the program. Since we had “active” code violations, we went to the front of the line. The HIP project opened bidding to repair our violations. Contactors were selected to repair and level the front porch balcony, repair siding, and prep and paint the house.

We were lucky to get good contactors. They are hard to come by here in Palatka. It didn’t take long for the contractors to repair the rotting support beams for the balcony and level out the drooping corners. (It had looked like the house was frowning) Since the bottom porch had been leveled and set in concrete 10 years ago, the stability of the balcony was already fairly good. While the condition of the balcony is good now, it still slopes like a ski jump – intentionally. If we got snow in Florida, it could be fun in the winter!

Test swatches were painted to determine colors. Exterior Restoration and Painting-Restoration of a Southern Belle
Test swatches were painted to determine colors. Exterior Restoration and Painting-Restoration of a Southern Belle

The painters then got started and I can’t imagine how hard it was. The house is 4000 sq. ft. on the inside. Due to the condition of the paint (much of the house was peeling down to bare wood), the painters had to scrape once, use Peel Stop brand primer, scrape a second time, then paint. I had never seen the Peel Stop primer before, and questioned its use. After the first application I was suitably impressed. The primer is clear, and soaks through existing paint. After the intial round of loose paint is scraped off, the Peel Stop solidifies the remaining paint and re-bonds it to the wood surface. Any additional peel spots are then scraped and primed again. It was amazing how “solid” the old paint became. Once the prep work was done, the body paint progressed rapidly as the painters used sprayers. The finishing touches of the hand painted windows then capped off the project.

Front View of the house after extensive prepwork, porch restoration and painting. Some of the work that was done to get this point was adding missing gingerbread and upper corbels to the balcony, completely adding custom made gingerbread rails on bottom porch, tearing off of false ceiling on balcony and adding beadboard and trim, addition of porch lights and sconces, restoration of front doors, fixing sagging porch and balcony, and adding custom made window screens (not shown). Exterior Restoration and Painting- Restoration of a Southern Belle
Front View of the house after extensive prepwork, porch restoration and painting. Some of the work that was done to get this point was adding missing gingerbread and upper corbels to the balcony, completely adding custom made gingerbread rails on bottom porch, tearing off of false ceiling on balcony and adding beadboard and trim, addition of porch lights and sconces, restoration of front doors, fixing sagging porch and balcony, and adding custom made window screens (not shown). Exterior Restoration and Painting- Restoration of a Southern Belle

As you can see the house now looks great. We’re in the process of painting the porches a green color and that will finish off the front stairs.

Back Porch after painting. The porch was made more spacious, when a staircase and landing,that was added in the 70's, was taken out. An old, but not historic back door, was replaced with a new secure door and lock. The plan is to eventually add matching gingerbread to the porch. Exterior Restoration and Painting-Restoration of a Southern Belle.
Back Porch after painting. The porch was made more spacious, when a staircase and landing,that was added in the 70’s, was taken out. An old, but not historic back door, was replaced with a new secure door and lock. The plan is to eventually add matching gingerbread to the porch. Exterior Restoration and Painting-Restoration of a Southern Belle.


The front doors and trim work after restoration and painting. Extensive Restoration was done to the doors in an earlier phase. Exterior Restoration and Painting-Restoration of a Southern Belle.
The front doors and trim work after restoration and painting. Extensive Restoration was done to the doors in an earlier phase. Exterior Restoration and Painting-Restoration of a Southern Belle.

UPDATE: The Peel Stop primer does not appear to have worked. Paint has begun to peel on multiple areas of the home.