A Splash of Color Makes Us Happy!!
You would think on a Tropical Island in the Caribbean, every house would be painted in fun, bright, tropical colors. This is not the case. Do you remember that house at the top of La Grande Princesse Hill? Do you remember the color it was? If you don’t or haven’t seen it, here it is. It was not fun or bright or done in a tropical color. It was just a much-needed “Vacation Home Improvement”!!
Paint could be the answer to what is needed for a Vacation Home Improvement …
How could someone fall in love with this? We hadn’t even really gotten inside the house to look around and we had this “color” to do something about. But remember, “The View” is really what sold us on the soon-to-be Casa de Vista. It had great bones and great possibilities AND we came with past experience in the home improvement projects. So we were not worried at all. This vacation home improvement needed to happen and was going to happen.
Choosing the perfect color of paint for your Vacation Home Improvement project:
- Go to Home Depot in the States (use HD because there is one on St Croix) … PERFECT!
- Get color swatches of all the colors that could work for an island home.
- Bring them home, talk about the colors, look at websites with island houses, and stare at the swatches – A LOT!!
- Try to imagine what this 3 x 3 piece of colored cardstock is going to look like all over your vacation house!
- Talk to many people and realize that everyone has a different opinion – IT’S NOT HELPING!!
- Finally put them in your carry-on bag for the next trip to St Croix and try not to worry about this decision right at that moment.
- It’s only paint … Right!!!
The process really ramped up when we started driving around the island to see all of the different color combinations on the houses on St Croix with a reddish roof. The roof limited our color choices, but that was actually ok. (So yellow was off the list. A yellow house with a red roof, Brian just kept saying … it reminded him of an old McDonald’s Restaurant.) We weren’t going to redo the roof, at least not at this point. So we needed to work with what we had.
Isn’t that what a vacation home improvement is all about? Something that we have learned to embrace during home improvement projects.
The Runkles had narrowed our pile of color swatches to five. Off to Home Depot for some sample paints and let’s get this “Painting Party” started.
Believe me, many more days of worrying and being concerned about the perfect color lie ahead for all 4 of the Runkles plus 2 grandparents who were helping out too. OK, actually it just might have been me. You would have thought that we were naming the house again! I just wanted to get it right the first time around.
A decision was made and everyone got busy. All hands on deck. It’s our investment for years to come and for everyone to enjoy.
And guess what … It turned out perfect.
A SPLASH OF COLOR DOES MAKE US HAPPY!!
PS – Three things learned from this project:
- Use “good exterior paint”. (With this Caribbean sun & weather pay extra for a longer period of time between paintings.)
- You don’t always need to go with the 1st choice … WE DIDN’T!!
- Don’t be afraid … IT’S ONLY PAINT!!
Vacation Home Improvement Epilogue
We had to have a second painting of Casa de Vista. Our Home Depot paint held strong from the beating of the Caribbean sun and wind for 5 years. We originally painted Casa de Vista in the Summer of 2017 with BEHR – Caicos Turquoise. Eventually, we started to see some wear/fade areas on the house in 2022. We thought that 5 years was good considering our island elements. But after talking to a Local Islander, he said that if we take the time to prime the surfaces again and use good paint, we can get at least 10 years out of this painting. So, in the Summer of 2022, we repainted the house with an existing color match from PITTSBURG PAINTS.
And … OUR VACATION HOME IMPROVEMENT LOOKS AWESOME!!
