Watching Paint Dry...

My house is ugly.

There's no doubt about it. There's no use in sugar coating it, lying about it, beating around the bush. My house is ugly. The paint on the doors is peeling and a drab shade of blue-grey (and I LOVE blue-grey. So you know it's drab.) The awnings over the front door and front window are dated, dirty, and broken. The entire house is white, with the exception of the drab doors. I've done my best to add some curb appeal with the flower beds in the front, but lets face it: it's still ugly.

So I've decided a few coats of paint may be in order. Since the siding is vinyl, it will stay white. It's not worth trying to paint vinyl, and it's just white. White is a nice neutral; goes well with everything. So I've decided that I definitely want to paint the doors. I'm on the fence about painting the trim around the windows and doors, but it's definitely something I've considered just to give the whole house a facelift.

My local Sherwin Williams store is having a sale on Saturday. All paints and stains are 40% off. And if you have been reading, you know that my entire house is painted in Sherwin Williams paint. I heart Sherwin Williams paint. So I am going on Saturday to purchase the paint for whatever I decide to do with my house. Whatever that may be.

That's where you come in.

I NEED HELP. I have no idea what colors to use, if I want to paint the trim, or anything else involving painting the exterior of a home! So I used the Sherwin Williams' Color Visualizer from their website. I uploaded a picture of my house (with the screen door open, so you can see the door), and just "painted" it different colors.

Baseline: Here's what my ugly house looks like now. I'm sure you all are wondering why I bought this place! :-)

Notice the drab blue-grey door, and the column on the side that is also drab drab drab.


My first thought was red. Red stands out, it's pretty, and I just like red doors. So here's the house with a red door:


Then I decided to try the red with a different color around the trim. Enter a grey trim.

I could make the trim darker or lighter, but this is the color grey I used to paint. Would you do a darker trim? Lighter?

My favorite color is blue, and I would love a blue door. So here's the house with a blue door called "Dark Night."


Here's a brighter shade of blue called "Deep Sea Dive."


And another, much brighter shade of blue. I didn't write down the color of this one. Duh. So we'll just call it "bright blue."


I also really like the color green. So I also tried some green doors for my house.

Another one of those colors I forgot to write down. This, we'll call "light green."


And another shade of green called "arugula." Why do they name paint after food?




I also considered grey and black for the doors, but with the house being such a drab white color, I feel the door needs a pop of color! So I ruled both of those out for door colors, though either color could be the trim color for the house!

Another thing to consider is the column on the side porch. It's the same ugly blue-grey as the doors. And it's awful too. Would I want to paint it the same color as the door? Or would I want to paint it a different color, like a neutral? There's a column in the back too that I would also need to consider. Not that it can be seen... Oh, and someday, I'd like to take the awnings off and replace them with something over the front porch that would be prettier. It would also need to be painted.

So I am asking for your help. If you were going to paint my ugly house, what color would you choose? Would you paint the trim around the doors and windows, or leave it white? Please, please, please leave me your opinion! I need to go purchase the paint on Saturday, and I don't know what to buy!

Making a Garden Sweet Garden, Part 2

As you saw in my last post, I have done a lot of work in the front of my house creating some curb appeal. However, while I shared the layout and how I made decisions on my landscaping, I didn't show the specifics of my landscaping. So here goes...

As you recall, I have an unslightly gas meter that resides in the front of my house, making it visible from the street. Ugh. Here's a reminder of what I started with once I determined what it might look like and shaped and mulched the area.



The first flowers I decided to plant in my garden were a flower called May Night Salvia. I loved the height they had, and the purple flowers were really pretty!


I also found another flower I liked called Tequila Sunrise. I tried to find flowers of all different shapes, sizes and colors to fill in my landscaping, because there's nothing worse than a boring landscape!




My dad suggested Knockout Roses, and after seeing them in the store, I decided that I had to have them! I found them on sale at Home Depot for $9.99 and bought 3! I decided to plant one of them in the front of the house. It's a pretty pink rose, and it's actually called a "Double Knockout Rose".



I used a plant called an Althea in front of the gas meter to try and hide it from view. Currently, it's not looking great (it's newly planted and they usually take a week or two to begin looking nice again.)



However, though the plant itself looks kind of sickly, the flowers on it are beautiful!


And last but not least, I planted some lilies! I chose red for the front of the house because the other flowers were pink, purple and yellow. They are so pretty! I planted two in front of the gas meter, knowing that they wouldn't block it from view quite yet.

This is the lily I bought at Lowes.


The other lily is a lily I purchased last year for the house but never actually planted. I actually purchased three lilies, but left them in the pots all winter. I didn't know where or how to plant them, and kind of ran out of time and energy since I had been working on the inside of the house so hard. I was absolutely shocked when I began to see green peeking out of the dirt in the pot. I told my dad all about it, and he said "Oh, it's probably a weed." Well, I think the proof is in the pudding because I definitely watched another beautiful red lily bloom from that pot!

This is after the lily bloomed one flower... you can see it getting ready to bloom again!


One day, there was a single red lily blooming on my plant... and the next, there were FOUR!






I check my flowers every single day and I get so excited when another beautiful flower pops up! This is my first garden, and I seriously think it's the coolest thing. As a matter of fact, I have a really hard time avoiding the garden section in any store... I just want to bring home more flowers! :-)