Wednesday, May 14, 2008

The old farmhouse gets a coat.










A coat of many colors, lovingly and painstakingly applied, one coat at a time, by a brush. And husband. It's possibly been over 30, no make that 40(?) years since it's been painted. With lead paint, no less.

Funny story about the paint. We never really did the conventional "what color do you want to paint the house honey"? and spent hours agonizing over color swatches and computer generated simulations about what your house would look like if it were "honey beige" or some other asanine ralph lauren color description like, "denim fiber" or whathaveyou. No. We bought "oops paint". Rejected, possibly returned, and left on the 'leftover shelf', it's fate hanging in the balance. (will I be bought? or am I to sit and seperate my colors here, doomed to a life in the warehouse forever??)

It all started with, well, who am I kidding, it was because we're too cheap (read: poor) to buy regularly priced paint. Turns out, we're always extra-happy (as opposed to super-happy) with the result. I absolutely love the color of my house. As usual, pictures don't do it justice and I've had more than one person say, "I love that gray color", and I say nothing (uncharacteristically) because it's more work to describe the shade of GREEN it actually is. So, I secretly hope that the people who think it's gray, can come visit one day.





So, the picture at left is the house, as we bought it. March of 2007. Here comes a more recent picture. (isn't "Before and After" so much fun?)






























And this, although the angle of the photographs are slightly different, is the new coat of many colors (ok, just three, but compared to white on white, on white) on the front porch.




This painting project began the last part of April 2008 and because of all the scraping, caulking, repair, priming, trimmming, and two coats, it is likely to continue through Oct. or Nov. of this year. (hubby often jokes that this house IS his second full time job.)
And this, my faithful readers, is called child-labor. It's how we get five minutes to sip some sun-tea on the front porch and then resume painting.... just kidding. Really, this is what happens when you turn your back for five seconds when there is a three-year-old on the farm.

What is this leisure time of which you speak?

my grateful button