Yes, I agree with the last 2 posts-JonMon and Mark. You WILL have to strip whatever is on your deck currently. My goal in life is to work with wood products that don't have to ever be stripped. We are still stripping the exterior of our clapboard house that has 130 years of peeling paint build up. That is how we came to learn about Allback Paint. Linseed paint has been used for hundreds of years. If you ever tour Mt Vernon, President George Washington used it. However, the new products are greatly improved by purification process. Linseed products protects and nourishes the wood and leaves it breathable so there is never trapped moisture and a plastic coat to peel. The draw back is the slower dry time. There are no chemical accelerators. This fact makes the product "GREEN" for the environment. Hot dry days are a perfect time for painting Boiled Linseed. To find out more about Purified Boiled Linseed try the link posted or call Soren or Collete at Viking Sales. They have been most helpful to me. Be sure to ask them if your climate will allow the Boiled Linseed products to cure properly. I live in the mid-central states. We had 30 days of 100 degree weather this year. I am still researching Floor Shield USA and Lifeline Endure at 1-800-548-3554. If I cannot find a longer lasting product that doesn't need stripping to re-coat than the AllBack products, I will definitely be using the Linseed Varnish mentioned in the link. Strip a deck once and you're desperate to never do it again. Here is a link that might be useful: Silent Paint Remover and Allback Paint

I had two older homes. 1100 sq feet, 1000 sq feet with small bathrooms. The homes were in very good location, but dated and not exactly what people were looking for; i.e. vaulted ceilings, large bathrooms, large kitchen. - I gutted all four bathrooms myself. Hammer, wrecking bar, boxes I got from the local supermarket. I was messy but not so difficult. - The first bathroom I used Lowes/Home Depot tiles on the shower/bathroom walls, floor to the bathroom. Then a wainscoat and big dramatic chair rail above it. This bathroom was a real show stopper and the realtor loved it. - I hired a guy to put up the tile work, plumber installed the new shower head, pipes, drain. About 1,000 dollars total. - I set the new toilet, vanity, light fixture, sink, painted everything myself. - All done for about 2k and a few weekends, nights. - Second bathroom had a tub, so I just gutted the walls, floor, new tile, vanity, toilet, drywall, cement board etc. Paid for plumber, tile guy. 2k done. Second Home - Same deal, gut myself, kept the old tube that had a nick in it. Bought the repair paint at lowes, and special cleaning spray. Shined up perfect. New vanity, tile, lights, toilet etc..tile guy installed tile on floor and around the tub. I put in the chair rain, wainscoat, painted. Looked great. Last bathroom was the best. Went to tile shop and found a big selection and quality of tile. They were great and this shower turned out perfect. I hated to sell the house because this bathroom was so nice. It sold the house. large floor tiles, all around the shower, installed vent fan because it never had one. This bathroom was 3k because of the better tile, but it sold the house. I think a good price range with you doing some of the messy work is about 3k-5k depending on what you keep and what you replace. Checking craigslist you can find tile, vanity, light fixtures or go to the salvage stores etc... Bathrooms were a big selling point for those homes. Just look online for tile ideas etc...then copy what you see. I think hiring a good tile guy is best because it is harder than you might think and they know the tricks etc. Putting up the cement board in the shower/bathroom stall hire a guy that knows how to make it square. It's important for the tile guy. Looking back, I enjoyed the remodel and learned a lot about it. I live in a newer home down and have a few bad tiles in the bathroom, but I won't do any major remodeling. I think you can do it for a lot less than 15k. Good Luck!

Great! If the roof is brown, you have a world of colors to choose from. In that case, I would chose a color for the trim and then paint the garage door that same color. The house door can then be another color to bring attention and help it stand out. Do you want to paint your trim every several years, or are you wanting to cover the trim with vinyl and aluminum? That is the first question you have to decide. The second choice greatly narrows your color choices. If you decide on paint, Chose a color family (like dark taupes or bronzes or ivory or hunter greens or turquoise...) and get paint samples at the local paint stores and paint some poster boards. You just live with them next to the house and roof on non-rainy days and see what you like. I once painted stripes of color on the wood of a house we were going to side. Neighbors walking by were asked to vote! Are you gardeners? Are you interested in taking care of annual flowers (water once or twice a day, fertilize occasionally, keep weed-free), or learning about perennials or bulbs? If you want to learn, you can actually make a garden bed that always has either a bulb or perennial in bloom. Or, you could go low-maintenance with shrubs and mulch. Again, your zone and your house's orientation (NSEW) is needed for anyone to give you advice on plants. I am with those who think that your bushes are way too old and overgrown. Maybe you can keep one or two that are green all the way to the bottom and don't look all shaved down. Use those as a backdrop and go from there. Are you interested in putting in any hardscape? If the window next to the door does not come down too low, it might look nice to have a bench there. Is there a concrete slab area behind the bushes there? if yes, you can use containers to add colorful annuals. If you want to garden, you can make garden beds in front of the front door area. Little fences or a raised bed made with landscaping stone are all options. Over where the room comes out further than the porch, there is a nice bush near the corner that may be in good enough shape to keep. Not the one by the downspout, the one in the front. (I would remove all of the bushes to the left of that one.) If there is a matching bush in good condition on the other side of that room, I might leave them both, but remove the ones in the middle, so the other two have room. You might be able to put a trellis under the window and train a flowering vine to spread side-to-side and fill some of that space on the wall. A few low plants around the tall bushes and in front of the vine, and you are done in that area. With a taupe roof and creamy brick, you have a pallatte limited only by your wallet, skills, and imagination!

My neighbor's reply to a potential buyer concerned that lead paint was used somewhere, sometime in her 1950's house: "Probably, but it didn't stop our son and daughter from receiving full cost scholarships to Stanford after living here for 18 years." Who lets her children eat paint? I WOULD be concerned about the aged lead water piping throughout older cities, delivering poison to every home.