Since I’ve spent a lot of time working on my outdoor projects, I’ve been thinking a lot about our home’s foundation. I get asked pretty regularly if I’m going to do anything to cover the problem and what I’m going to cover it with. Will I add my DIY artificial stones to the foundation? Will I cover it with something else?
The answer is no. I will not cover the foundation with an artificial stone or something else that requires so much time and effort. But I would think about painting it so that everything is a uniform color and looks like I actually put some thought into it rather than ignoring it. When I was researching the products I wanted to use to paint the side steps of my studio, I read at least a hundred customer reviews and looked at all the pictures. I came across these two customer submitted photos that got me thinking seriously about painting the foundation of our home. Both look so beautiful and I would love our foundation to look similar.
Instead, we make it look like a complete mess, as if it has been completely forgotten or ignored.
I think it would look a lot better if everything got a coat of paint (or two). It would give the house a much more finished look. I quickly created a mockup of the side door area using a dark gray primer. I have no idea if this is the color I would actually use, but I thought it would look good in a color just a few shades darker than the trim color.
I think one reason we have so much trouble with dirt sticking to the foundation is because it’s just bare concrete. It’s rough and porous, so dirt can really set in. It’s really unsightly. And I know that if I cover some planting beds around the foundation with mulch so it’s not just bare soil, a lot of this problem will be eliminated, but I don’t think mulch will completely eliminate the problem.
Not only would painting it give it a better look, but it would also create a surface that dirt wouldn’t stick to as easily as it would on bare concrete. Again, I’m not sure what color I would choose, so it probably wouldn’t look like what it would actually look like. Just imagine that the color is actually a few shades darker than the color of the stone and cladding.
The color of the cladding and stone is Sherwin Williams Mindful Gray (SW 7016). On the website it looks like this…
So three shades darker is called Dovetail (SW 7018)…
This color called Gauntlet Gray (SW 7019) is four shades darker…
And this color called Black Fox (SW 7020) is five shades darker…
I think once the primer is pressure washed and dried, painting goes pretty quickly. There’s a lot of width that needs to be painted, but I don’t think any of it is taller than 12 inches. And I could always do it in two steps, tackling the front and visible sides of the house first and then focusing on the back of the house at a later date when I start working on backyard projects. Right now I want to work on the area in front of the bedroom and closet (i.e. the really dirty areas in the photo at the top of this post), as well as the area under the living room windows, the breakfast room windows and around my studio on the front and side (represented by the white line in the photo below).
I don’t know when I’ll actually be able to do this. At the moment my porch project has been pretty busy and I’ve only given myself until my birthday (June 21st) to work on outdoor projects before moving back to indoor projects and finishing the storage closet in our bedroom. So I probably won’t make it until fall when it starts to cool down.
But what do you think? Is it worth the time and effort to paint the foundation and give it a clean, even look all around? I’m leaning towards “yes”. And when I do that, it really needs to be done before I start bringing in soil and plants to create planting beds. I think it would be worth it. And you?
