Hey hey!! Guys, if youre not following the Merc reno along on my Insta/Instastories DO IT!! I need your opinions in real time and it’s kind of fun to see what crazy things pop up during the course of the day!. Follow here!
Ok are you ready to chat about our stucco?! It’s FINALLY done! We were hoping it would be done in October…then November…but apparently Santa moonlights as a stucco guy cause it didn’t happen until December. But its finished and I LOVE IT.
Just a refresher, this is what the Merc looked like when we bought it:
And this is what it looks like today!!
NOT EVEN THE SAME PLACE RIGHT!??!
If you remember from my last stucco post, this is where we left off. The brown coat. A brown coat is the base of the stucco, and then a color coat is applied after the brown coat has cured for a few weeks.
One of the reasons it took so long to get the stucco finished it because we kept running into color problems. I knew that I wanted it white, but I didn’t want it to be too cool, so I had them color match my favorite warm white Sherwin-Williams Alabaster. (You can see it in my old house here)
When the sample came back it was really warm. See it compared to a plain white door?
So I took a drive and did some friendly trespassing onto newer houses in our area that were “white”. The color was almost an exact match to most and looking at them from far away I felt like they were too warm. My next door neighbor has a painted white house that is a great shade so I compared it there and it was much darker and warmer. It just looks so different in different lighting!!
Next option was to take a sample of Mandi White (my favorite “just” white) to them to match. When they finally brought the sample back it was darker and more warm than the first one! WHAT!!?
Sort of out of sheer frustration (we were weeks past the scheduled date at this point) I said to the guy who brought the sample over that I just wanted it to be white. Plain white. He sort of laughed and said “Just white? Why didn’t you say that?” The next morning he brought over the best “just white” sample I’ve ever seen. It was perfect, not too warm, not too cool. I was SO HAPPY!! It looks exactly like the white paint we used on our detached garage.
I don’t have a picture of all of the samples together cause #Court and I’ve called and left a few messages with the stucco guys about the exact formula, I’ll update this post with it once they pass it along!
We’ve still got some work to do on the front, like the giant faux door, installing our lights, and finishing the wood headers (and getting the paint paper off the windows!!) but its looking really close to the original vision!
Since you uncovered the original sign, what are you going to do with the space where you had planned to put the reproduction? Will it be naked?
Looks like the lights on that side are going to be lower than originally planned. That should fill the space nicely if the lights are big enough.
WOW!!! What a transformation.
The black trim is so amazing.
You are amazing! I can’t believe your ability to vision and stick to it until accomplished! This is so fantastic! We were in a road trip and went thru southern Utah and I wanted to tell my husband to stop and find the merc, but I thought he’d think I was stalking. Next time!
So many great features…..and how perfect is that awesome street light!?! Fits right in! Kismet!
The Merc is looking amazing and that is all down to your incredible vision! I have been following your journey so closely on Youtube & here and am absolutely loving seeing everything that is going on – I love how open you are about the whole process! I’d love to renovate a building like The Merc into a house of my own one day! You guys rock!
Holly x
I love how the black highlights the shape of the facade on the right side. Also, I’ve been wondering if you will be making any changes to the benches and planter on the sidewalk. I’m sure you have an opinion about them!
I am loving this reno so much, you are such an inspiration. I haven’t found anyone out there that does what you do in such an accessible way. #TeamMandi forever!
Beautiful!! I am loving all these transformations!!
I’ve been your loyal reader for many years, your article is so great that it can inspire readers
So, you never said the name of the “just white” sample he brought over? What was the paint color name?
Such an awesome job! I really love it as it is.
Forgive me if you have already gone through a post about the barn doors, but I would say don’t do them. I love the indent that you’ve left, it feels more historically acurate not to do them.
I feel like the barn doors are sort of referencing the past through fakery where as leaving the indent shows a new future for the Merc, kind of like a ghost.
Either way it will be awesome, just wanted to say love it! (But don’t do the doors 🙂
Ps…. love the white?
Hi Mandi! I love, love to read your blog, but these days (ok weeks), it’s almost impossible. It loads so slowly, it takes like 10-15mins. Could you do something?
Thanks 🙂