Exterior Painting

It's time to think about repainting the exterior of the house.
Using Angie's List as a starting point, I identified three local companies with excellent reputations to give us a quote on the job: Olde England Painting, Eagle Painting, and Professional Partners. Eric and I had already done some preliminary research on green paint options, and found them rather limited. More on that a bit later.
The first painter out to the house was Gavin of Olde England. He came by on 8/16 and gave the house a careful and thoughtful lookover, and made some thoughtful suggestions on the use of color. (Suggesting, for example, that the house would look bigger if we painted the parts that are currently blue a light green shade of our choice, and the white parts of the foundation a slighter darker version of the same color.) He also suggested adding a bit of the green to the trim color to help the colors go together better. He said the house needed to be scrapped and sanded in preparation for painting. I asked if the exisiting paint may contain lead. If lead paint is sanded, that lead could contaminate the soil in the yard. He said they put down cloths to contain the sandings and emphasized that sanding was essential for a good outcome.
The house was built in 1960. The government banned the use of lead-based paint in residential environments in 1978, which means there was 18 years during which the house may have been painted with lead-based paint. I'm going to consider doing a lead test before allowing Gavin to get busy with a sander. We should also have his quote in a few days.