Post 4: Exterior Painting

So a big, whiny issue I had with the house is that I hate the color.  Red really isn't my favorite, and on top of that, this particular barn red is low on the reds I do like.

But I couldn't justify the expense of repainting the whole house because the paint job is (I think) original, on the original cedar shingles, and they are in almost-perfect condition. So then the question became what could trim would work for this.

Here's a reminder of what the house looked like when I bought it:

Not many colors, in my mind, are great complementary colors for this particular red.  Although white made sense, I just didn't like it.  So, when researching online, I found this particular combination that I liked:

This color seemed to be some sort of odd combination of black, grey, and brown.  

We found a painter on craigslist who seemed, frankly, a bit sketchy, but the price was right.  Mostly he did a good job, and this is the result. I couldn't be happier!

Here's the after.  We also had him remove the metal awnings, which brought in a lot of light:

(And yes, we got the front tree cut down, but that's another post.)