We are almost totally finished. One wall hasn't been painted yet but it's the wall you can't see from the street unless you happen to catch it at a particular angle. I have to get more trim paint first because I accidentally dumped a whole gallon of it in the grass. Fortunately, I was able to scrape about a quarter of it back into the can and finish most of the house trim with what was left. Unfortunately, there's a nasty paint spot in the middle of my yard.
The porch has certainly been transformed since this post. I sold the cream chairs that used to be here on Craigslist, then bought the garden bench from someone else on Craigslist. (Don't you love how that works sometimes?) My mom gave me the little painted birdhouse. She bought it at an art fair in Chicago years ago. I've always loved it so she surprised me with it on my birthday! She also gave me the chalkboard which is really an old cabinet door that someone painted with chalkboard paint. I got the idea for a chalkboard after I was inspired by my neighbor, Mutsumi, who painted pieces of driftwood with chalkboard paint and used them as little signs by her front door. Someday I'll have to show you her yard, it's super cool.
I knew I had to do something about the dark orange-red brick and the white-painted mortar so I gave them a color wash by watering down some of the gray porch paint and mixing it with a few other darker colors I had on hand. The wash sank right into the brick so I really had to slosh it on. It looks a little more aged and subdued now and that is more of the look I was going for.
The old aluminum storm windows were painted in the trim color, too, and I can't believe how much it helped. The tracks and grooves in the frames were full of old bugs and cobwebs and it felt so good to take them down and blast them with the hose. So glad I did it. (There's a climbing hydrangea at the bottom of this trellis that I'm trying to train to cover the brick.)
Before the transformation, I had a serious problem with our garage door windows. There was nothing to them and they made the house look like a Les Schwab Tire Center. The Mister had a brilliant idea, though, which was to paint the outside edges of the windows in the trim color, then paint and glue little strips of wood to make the windows look like paned-glass. Neat-o!
This color changes drastically in different light. It can look greener or grayer or bluer depending on where you are and where the sun is shining. Sometimes I like it better than others. The one color I do have a problem with, though, is the porch color. I'm not a fan of painted cement but it had already been painted so many times over the years that I didn't really have much choice but to paint it again. I thought I picked a color that was more of a dark, muddy gray (kind of like the color of aged, unpainted cement) but it turned out to be a light, steely gray. It's already showing the dirt and it's too close to the house color so it needs to be repainted.
Soon.
Like right this second.
Because you know how I am about these kinds of things.
