Last week DH and I painted this wall on the left.
It is not easy to paint brick -especially bark faced brick. We put on two coats of undercoat before the top coat of premium outdoor paint. Our hands were sore from all the pushing of the paint into the grooves of the bricks, but no lasting damage was done -and we were very pleased with how a couple like us with hand and joint issues, were able to get this job done together.
The reason we painted this wall is that it faces west -and gets a lot of afternoon sun in the summer. The room behind is my sewing room -and I spend a lot of time in there during the day. I felt as though the room was significantly hotter than the rest of the house, and we had thought about installing an insulated false wall of light coloured colourbond in front of it. Someone at the Sustainable House Open Day suggested trying the paint first -turning a dark and heat absorbing wall into one which will reflect light and heat.
As soon as the fairly thin first undercoat went on you could tell the difference -light was bouncing off the wall and into our little 'French cafe' space and the lounge room beyond. The cafe is just tucked in to the right of the picture above near the carport door. You can see that we have a colourbond wall here -which is the same colour as the carport door and the same colour of our newly painted wall.
At the same time we moved the pot plants which we had here -and we haven't moved them back. We are thinking of creating a water feature for this newly painted wall...with some 'Moroccan' inspired tiles as a backsplash.
This is the kind of thing we are thinking of
We already have the plinth and a similar sort of bowl, but we are thinking of putting it up against the wall, with some kind of decorative tiles behind. We already have outdoor lighting and water nearby.
Meanwhile I can see that I need to improve the weeding of the bricks in front of the wall here! The solution to every problem creates another problem!
I am also wondering if we will get to the point of painting the whole of the house this way...but I think we will get a tradie in to do it!
4 comments:
It’s going to be beautiful. One of my neighbors has a water fountain similar to the photo you posted. It looks really nice, though they don’t turn the fountain on often.
I hope that works, a simple idea which are always the best.
Congratulations! It's always so satisfying to do a job like that yourself. That's going to be a wonderful nook to enjoy a cup of coffee or tea together.
Painting the wall a lighter colour is a fantastic idea. I can imagine that it will work to keep the heat down quite a bit.
Love your little cafe area xx
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