"A stone is ingrained with geological and historical memories." - Andy Goldsworthy

We made what will probably be the most dramatic house change that we will ever make.  It looks like a whole new house, and most importantly, it looks like "us."

It's official, this house is ours, and we belong to it too.

After much deliberation, we decided to sandblast our house.  Sandblasting is a process that uses an abrasive material (recycled copper in our case) to remove the paint from a surface and open the pores of concrete block bringing it back to its most basic and natural form.  Our house had two layers of paint, the off-white that we started with, and then the original, very 60s (but not in a good way) orange-beige.  Once sandblasted, our house revealed gray concrete full of beautiful and varied little pebbles.  If it is possible to be both modern and organic at the same time, that is exactly what our house is.

This is what we started with:

This is how our house looks now:

All that's left to do is patch a couple little blow-outs in the grouting (expected with 60 year old grout) and put a sealant on the block to prevent moisture from getting in. 

An unexpected benefit of sandblasting was that it exposed some very attractive metal that had been covered in paint.  Who would have known that our electrial boxes and faucets could be so handsome?!?!

A quick thanks to Baja Sandblasting for their attention to detail, professionalism, and just general awesomeness.