Finishing the outside of the house - Part 1

Hi to anyone who is reading this, is there anyone out there??  Let me know if there is, as I would love to hear from you.

When I first got my house I decided that I should do all of the outside first.  It hadn't been finished on the side walls or the back and I knew I didn't just want to paint it.  I looked at the finishes I could do and decided on mixing paint with some fine sand that my son uses in his job as a hard landscaper.  I think they use it on block weave drives?  Anyway, it was really fine and I thought it would be ok for the finish I wanted.  I bought a couple of sample pots of paint from the local hardware shop and just mixed until I thought it looked ok (not very scientific I know!).  I painted one coat of this and when it was dry I painted with just paint.  As I have moved on with the project I have been thinking of doing some sort of colour wash over it as well, but I haven't tackled it so far.  At the moment it is all really neat and tidy, but in real life it would be a bit dirty in places wouldn't it?  Here is a picture of it with the windows just sitting in it, I haven't fixed them properly yet.  I also painted the quoins in a slightly darker colour to give a little contrast. I made the mistake of painting the top trim (I think it is called dentil?) with gloss paint to start with but it looked awful.  When I checked on various forums I realised that it was a complete no no to use gloss, so I re-painted with ordinary household matt paint.  It came out much better.

The front door I painted with a Humbrol Gloss paint in colour number 2.   It's ok, but I think another time I would use acrylic paint.  You'll also see in some photos coming up that it was quite difficult to get a nice finish.  Lovely from your normal view but my photos really pick up the flaws!  Oh well, this is all a learning curve!

I hand made the letterbox and the door knocker.  The letterbox is a piece of cardboard and I used a small piece of lead which was left over from the roof and embossed on it the word 'Letters'.  I stuck it on to the cardboard and then trimmed it with a cord taken from a gift card to give like a rope effect.  I am fairly pleased with it, could it be better? yes I think it could, but this is my first attempt after all!

The door knob is a bead that I painted and added to a hole punch size of card.  I painted them all with Humbrol Metal Cote paint in black. The door lock is one that I bought from Bindels which is a lovely site and has loads of jewellery findings and beads on.  It was originally brass so I painted it with the black as well.

Can you guess what the door knocker is made from?

Yes, of course, its the back off a clip on earring!  I wrapped a tiny bit of thin ribbon over the top bit which just finishes it off, again it has been painted in the black, but I can see that a little bit of it has rubbed off, I'll have to retouch it and put some sort of sealer on.

I'll talk some more about the outside in my next post.  See you later.  Alice