Olive and Eggplant

That’s how I’m describing our new porch and door colors, which look better than the previous blue and mint green.  I was getting some strange looks from the neighbors when I said the door was going to be purple, but as soon as I switched over to “eggplant” there weren’t any problems.

I painted the porch this summer in a gray/blue color, but it didn’t seem to fit with the new color scheme.  Also, I thought the olive green color would complement the stone better than the gray.

Here is a peek at the (somewhat) finished look.

 

My mom came up with the idea to use eggplant on the door since there are so many reddish doors on our street.  I think it’s a nice change from the usual colors.

What do you guys think?  Do you like the new door color?

The guy who is supposed to tear out the wall delayed it until Friday (tomorrow) so I’m really(!)  hoping that he shows up in the morning.  If all goes as planned, I will have photos up this weekend of the progress in the kitchen.

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Tweaking the Porch Design

Small changes are coming to the porch, in particular the removal of the metal railing.  It certainly took long enough for us to get around to this project, but it felt good to do something with it.  I wasn’t really sure what to do about it- paint it, remove all or part of it, put something new up… I think the confusion about what to do and Jimmee’s packed schedule have contributed to our procrastination since I tried and tried to loosed those screws by myself with no luck.

I got some looks from the neighbors while we were out on the porch hauling the things away, possibly because we didn’t get the neighborhood board’s approval.  Let’s face it, they don’t approve much, so we just had to take a chance and go for it.  We may even sand blast the railings and put some of them back with a more neutral color.

So here are some photos of the process.

These screws were ridiculous.  They didn’t want to budge, no matter what, and it seems like we used most of a can of WD-40 to loosen these guys.

It’s a little messy on the porch (and around it), but here we are making some progress.  Two down, four to go.

I’m not 100% sure how I feel about the new look, but at least it opened things up and took away some of the craziness of the black metal designs.  This house has a lot going on with that mint green, the stone, the weeds covering the front bed.  It’s a mess right now.

Can’t wait to get the new plants in!  That will definitely spruce the front up and make it look a little bit more cohesive.

Hope you’re all having a great week.  xo  anne

Porch Clean-Up

Today we are having gorgeous weather so I decided to put off whatever else needs doing and work on shaping up the exterior of our house.  Our front porch has looked terrible since the day we moved in, mainly from the peeling blue paint that is everywhere.  The porch was painted in the past without primer, which is tempting, but never works out in the long run.  I decided to go get some paint to spruce it up after scraping all the old stuff off, and while I was at the hardware store I picked up some flowers for the pots laying around in our garage.

Here is the before picture of the porch

I should have gotten a close up of the peeling paint, but you can see it’s not in the best shape.  After taking all the old paint off, I primed the porch and then did my first coat of “weathered cement” (that’s the color).  I don’t know if it really came out looking like weathered cement, but maybe that comes with time.

After finishing with the painting, I looked up and of course, there was Striper trotting across the porch.  I yelled, and he looked at me and then lifted up his foot to check what was going on.  Next, he hopped onto the window sill, licked his feet, and then walked the other way on the porch.  During this time I had a broom stick trying to steer him off.  He ended up walking back and forth three times (trying to avoid the broom) before I could lure him off.  Here he is leaving the scene of the damage.

After painting over the paw prints and then waiting for things to dry AGAIN, I put the furniture back along with the new plants.

I actually think it looks a little bit blue in this picture, but it’s really more of a tan color.  At least I hope it’s not blue since that’s what I was hoping to get rid of!

While I was doing the planting I added some flowers to our back entrance, and it looks much happier with this little touch.

The final accomplishment for the day was cleaning out the garage.  I don’t have a before picture because I only went out to get the pots, and that turned into a 2 hour cleaning project.  If you can believe it, there was carpet in our garage, and it was a really horrible dirty carpet (much worse than the house if it’s possible).

So I was pleased to get rid of that and then organize the rest of it so I will actually be able to find things.  I have to put up a picture just because I love organized things, and I love seeing the clean cement floor!

Next I want to get rid of the metal railing that’s on the porch…  don’t know if I need a permit for that, but I might try it and see if anyone says anything.  Oh, and putting in a garden bed is on the list too!