Exterior House Change

I decided that in the midst of change, I wanted to spruce up the exterior of my house. It's consumed random thoughts of pieces of my mind over the last week. See, when I start thinking something, it typically can be consuming so sometimes I just run with it. Mind you, not always a good run - sometimes tripping and falling along the way.

I wanted to add color to my house. I have tried this once in the past, of my nine years of home ownership. I wish I could say that it was a success, but at least it wasn't a complete failure. It worked (in the sense of lack luster moping around the office twiddling your thumbs kind of work) - it just was. The house color was lighter than I had hoped and basically turned into a fresh paint of the existing color. I did get rid of the salmon trim and replaced all the windows and the doors with white. I was hoping to add a cranberry trim, which I did to the garage and the fence, but never to the house as I couldn't decide where to start and where to stop. This issue continues, today.



I think I've settled on a color for the house. A "weekend getaway", honestly the name had me sold although it was tough with the hot pink pepto-bismal color of "secret rendezvous". How cool would that be to say, "Come on over to my 'secret rendezvous'?" Ok, maybe it wouldn't be that cool.




T HATES green, so of course the color that I wanted, green. Not like the Michigan State green that he utterly despises but a warm, softer, darker green. I have columns around my house that I would like to keep the same house color as they are and then add the green to the actual house. I wish painting were easy - as I still don't know where to stop the green and my friend that is painting it fears that I could end up with a striped house. Are stripes really that bad?

Then there are the more than curious neighbors since in the midst of planning for the painting, E and I tore down more than half of my useless fence. I liked the semi-privacy from not seeing the neighbors old truck but the leaning fence with the peeling cranberry paint was serving little purpose. So last week at 7:55a.m. in my long red bathrobe and flip flops, E and I tore it down. Of course that wasn't the plan but once an idea was planted, it began to grow and take on a life of it's own. In addition to tearing out part of the fence, the idea of removing the hastas, flowers and lilac bush to pour concrete to widen the driveway to allow for another car to park came to fruition. So back to the neighbors, last night as I started digging up the flower bed the neighbor across the street came over to be "nosey" to see if I had sold the house sans for sale sign (they have listed their house on and off for three years now!). The next door neighbor inquired about why I took down the fence to which I replied, "I thought I would be more neighborly. But don't expect change to happen over night!"


E said he would paint a small section of the back of the house for me to view to see if I liked it. That proceeded to be the entire back of the house! While I'm still not sure if the sides of the columns should be the white or the green - debate from a structural and a painter perspective. I think...I like it. It looks lighter on the house than I imagined, but I am up for the change.

Maybe just maybe I might paint the columns "secret rendezvous" and freak ALL of my neighbors out!