Exterior Makeover: Start to Finish

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Four months of hard work have paid off with the lakehouse exterior makeover finally complete. This project took the entirety of my summer, but the results are stunning. The original yellow color mixed with multiple areas of water damage led to the start of tackling this major project.

Kitchen Door Removal

The house initially had five entrances including one located in the kitchen. When I designed the kitchen makeover, I decided it would be better to have more wall space for storage than to keep an entrance that had the kitchen function more as a walkway. I removed the door and put some plywood in the cavity while hiring out the rest of the work to add a vapor barrier, replace the siding, and jackhammer out the concrete steps.

Damaged Siding Reparation

When the warm weather came, I began to work on the rotted areas of the exterior. Many areas were severely damaged and needed replacing, like the fascia board. I replaced the fascia boards, cleaned the soffit vents, and finished caulking everything to make sure it was sealed off. Below the affected area was more rot and water along with a poor grading along the house. To fix the issue, I needed to build a short retaining wall.

I hired my neighbor to excavate about two yards of dirt out of the area. From there I removed the damaged tar paper, affected sheathing, replaced the OSB with plywood, and caulked the seams. To cover it fully, I stapled vapor barrier house wrap and used flashing tape to seal it up. I finished this by reinstalling the siding back into place.

Retaining Wall Construction

After the damaged siding was repaired, I decided to build a retaining wall. First I leveled and tamped paver base on the dirt, then I laid my first row of blocks ensuring each one was level in all directions. I installed drain tile behind the block and covered it with a sleeve to prevent sediment build up inside. After that was completed, I laid the subsequent layers of block and poured pea rock behind the wall for drainage. I covered the rock with soil slanted away from the wall. A heavy-duty black poly was laid down between the house and the retaining wall to prevent erosion. We poured the rock, then glued the top caps of the retaining wall to they would stay in place.

Painting Full Exterior Makeover

The next step in my exterior makeover was painting the house a new color. Quickly, I ran into a problem when I realized the paint did not adhere to the house and was pulling off in pieces. I decided to take off the entire paint job on all three sides of the house and stain the siding so that in the future it could breathe.

I used Diamabrush angle grinder attachment and sanding sponge to get the paint off. After the paint was off, it uncovered areas around a window and doorway with extensive rot. I cut out the rot with my circular saw and oscillating multitool. I applied flashing tape and nailed in trim boards, and finished by caulking all seams.

In the front of the house and the garage, we did not remove any paint because it was well adhered to the house. Removal of the shutters and the bulky railing was the first step. From there I scraped, filled blemishes, sanded, caulked, and pressure-washed the house. I primed all bare wood spots with a mini roller. I hired professionals to apply a solid stain that was color matched to my paint on the three bare wood sides, while I painted the garage and front of the house myself. For this project, I was gifted a Magnum X7 Sprayer by Graco. I rolled the soffit and fascia by hand, while spraying and masking off where the tape lines could be straight with Marquee line from Behr. Thankfully I only needed to do one coat of this beautiful smoky trout color.

Front Entrance Exterior Makeover

The front entrance still needed some renovation, so I started with purchasing a new door and prepped the holes needed to mount the knobs, painted it the color Spiced Berry by Behr, and installed new hardware. I took off the old storm door, installed some new lights, and painted the brick mold and trim around the doorway to match the rest of the house.

The last step of this lake home exterior makeover was the front step. After removing the rotting railing I realized that most of the wood was not salvageable. I began prying the boards up and put joist covers on the framing to protect it from further rotting. I laid down decking boards on top of the framing and it turned out beautiful. The joist covers and composite deck boards were from Armadillo Decking. I had the fascia board cover the side of the decking and covered the unsightly edge.

Finally, after a whole of summer of hard work, this exterior makeover looks modern, charming, and inviting. I am so proud of what I was able to accomplish on the exterior of this house and am so thankful for all the help I got along the way. The before and after of this house are such a big difference! I am more than pleased with how this house turned out, what do you think? I hope this project inspires you to tackle ones of your own!