Ta-Da!

Operation Exterior, complete!  

(for now)

 The color is a little truer in this photo...

We used Kingsport Grey HC-86 as the main house color and Grant Beige HC-83 for the trim color (Thanks to my friend, Doug, over at Tracery Interiors for the trim color tip).

Next on the agenda...
Painting the concrete walkway and porch (same color as house)...then eventually replacing it with stone.
Landscaping...we want greenery that will come up as tall as the brick foundation and make the house look "tucked in".

The recap...

Before:

After:

 

I'll post more details on the whole process soon.   First, Chris and I need some R & R to enjoy our accomplishment!   

House Updates

We're just pluggin' along.  Still trying to get our house painted.  Charles the Painter and his handy wife Marilyn have been working hard, but the cold weather is slowing us down! 

We're so close!  We still need the second coat of trim paint and a few little touchups. 

I'm very ready to get everything cleaned up, beautiful, and back to normal!

Sorry for the lack of posts, but I've been spending my weekends working outside on the house (in the cold!).  I don't want to show any update pictures right now, because we're so close to being finished...I want to wait and show the final product!

Happy New Year! 

Why the blues?

I was chatting with an architect friend of mine and shared with him our discovery of turquoise blue underneath layers of paint on our front porch ceiling.  Turns out our porch is not so unique.   

He told me an old theory about why porch ceilings are painted blue.  He said that in Louisiana, people used to paint their ceilings blue to repel mosquitos.  Mosquitos hate the bright sun, and so the idea is that they hide from blue skies and will potentially hide from "blue sky look-alikes".  This trend travelled north into other areas of the South.   

This led me to research and I found a few more possible reasons for this southern trend...

1.  Blue is a calming color. 

2.  Blue wards off evil spirits, and because "haint" is another word for evil spirit, it is often referred to as "Haint Blue".  This tradition began with the Gullah people, who were descendants of slaves who worked on plantations in South Carolina and Georgia. They passed on their heritage through the stories and the beliefs of their ancestors, such as the belief that the color blue warded off  haunts or haints.

3.  And again, Blue paint repells insects, insects confuse it for the sky and don't nest on blue paint.  They also hide from the bright sun associated with blue skies. 

4.  Blue ceilings make the day feel longer.

5.  Blue ceilings date back to the mid-1770s when Prussian blue pigment became popular.  Prior to this time, blue pigment was expensive and didn't last. 
Here are some of the links I consulted:
The Whys Behind the Blue Porch Ceiling
Haint Blue Porch Ceiling Tradition
Color Diary:  Blue Porch Ceilings

Well, I loved our turquoise ceilings before, and now I love them even more knowing their some Southern history associated with it!  That was just the motivation I needed to finish scraping them so we can enjoy them!

I matched the color from our ceiling and incorporated it into our porch swing and front door...

(this night-time shot actually shows our door the best...)

P.S.  We're still trying to get our house painted!  It's been too cold to paint or caulk!  (You can't paint if the temperature is under 50).  Luckily, it's warmed up a little bit around here this week, so we're hoping to see some progress soon!

sittin', waitin', wishin'...

Sorry, for the delayed post, but the weekend before last, Chris sacrificed a weekend in the woods, to put up our railings.  I am very grateful!

He worked long and hard.  Our friend, Lindsey also came over and helped Chris get up the railing post...which was the hardest part of the job.   I was the assistant throughout the day, and I even cut some of the wood myself with a big scary miter saw.

The railings were a lot easier to put up than the new columns, even though they were time consuming.

I got the porch swing painted, rigged and hung...

And even got a little festive with some Christmas lights...

But STILL NO PAINT JOB!  Arghhh!  

You can't paint your house when it's under 50 degrees outside, and we have had a COLD December!  There's still some caulking left to do, priming on the brick, and then paint all over!  

I'm praying for just a few warmer days so Charles the Painter can knock it out!  

For now, I'd still rather look at this...

...than this...

...I'll just keep dreaming of this...

...til it's done!  

(I'm just hoping that day comes before March!!!)

The Work Has Begun...

The work has begun to make this...

Look *something* like this... (which I rendered in photoshop)

We found someone to help us do the work for a very good price so things are moving much quicker than if we were doing a straight DIY.

First, the scraping & sanding...(which took about a week)

Looking rough, huh?

Then, Chris and Charles the Painter spent a Saturday putting up some additional trim work...

(don't worry, we'll add that last little piece up top after we fix the gable)

...While Bei and I worked on the shutters...

Then, Charles the Painter pressure washed the house...

and accidentally discovered that we have really pretty flagstone walkways and patio in the back (under a bunch of dirt)!  Who knew!?

Anyway, back to the house...

Next, Charles the Painter primed (most of) the house...

And then...

drumroll, please...

Charles the Painter went on vacation.  

But never fear, the improvements continued...

Over the Thanksgiving long weekend...Chris and his dad (and I) were hard at work.  

They removed the wraught iron...

(can I get an amen!?!)

...replaced rotten wood, and started building new columns, which meant that our house was temporarily suspended by 2x4s...scary.  

Huge improvement, right?

But the gable needed replacing...

I kept myself busy by adding more color to our front door, painting & rigging our porch swing, staining & building our shutters, and priming wood boards.  

At the end of the weekend, I think we accomplished a lot!  

This week, we'll work on getting up the new wood railings, and then awaiting Charles the Painter's return for our spiffy new paint job!

Wahoo!  

So remember, we started out with this...

Spruced it up to this...

But it currently looks like this...

And now, we're going for something like this...

Check back in for more updates!

What lies beneath...

Started scraping the paint off the ceiling of our front porch...because it was basically falling off on it's own...

And I discovered, that beneath this chipping paint lies awesomeness...

I had to call in for back-up.

(Which involved Chris making an emergency run to Lowe's for legit paint scrapers)

I mean, really, I'm basically in love with the thought of our hole porch ceiling look like this... 

(minus the leftover grey paint, of course)

Roughly three hours of labor and we're only this far...

Feel free to send encouraging postcards, letters, or presents...because it's gonna be a LONG hard journcy scraping this whole thing...but it WILL be worth it!

Check back...in four months...for the results!

No More Light Kits!

When we bought our house, every single room has a fan with a light kit.
Of course, Chris was thinking, how convenient...just flip the switch and the lights are on.
You see, I have been learning A LOT about decorating and design over the past year, and so I too thought it was convenient at first.
I knew our light kits were not very attractive (big white globes), but I thought we could just switch them out for a more appealing version.

So I started the hunt for more attractive light kits.  I searched high and low and came up empty handed.  Then I realized...I don't think there are any attractive light kits.  Light kits are just not very pretty.

My mom explained to me that fans are supposed to be inconspicuous.  You're not supposed to notice them.  They are just supposed to blend in with the ceiling.  Putting a light on them draws attention to them that you don't want.  

I was intimidated by the electrical work, so my temporary solution was that I pulled the cords on all the lights so that when you flip the switch only the fan comes on.  I did this so we would get in the habit of turning on lamps instead.  Then I removed the globes and the light bulbs, so that it looked like this...

and this...

Pretty huh?

During these few months of living with only lamp-light, I realized that what they say about overhead lighting is true!  It's not good (except canned lights, pendants, & chandeliers...not sure why).  I just feel so much better without it.  Bad overhead lighting makes you feel like your in a hospital, or a super wal-mart.  Something about lamps just give the room that ambiance...that really makes you feel good in your home.

But after a few months of looking at the globeless, bulbless light kits it was time for a real solution.  

I googled how to remove light kits.  I found some instructions, but nothing with pictures.  So I was still intimidated.  But Chris helped me, and we figured it out...It was super easy!

1.  Turn on your fan.

2.  Flip the switches in your fuse box, until one of them turns it off.  Leave it off.

3.  Unscrew the globe.  There will probably be about 2-3 screws.

4.  Remove the light bulb.

5.  Unscrew the casing that the light kit is attached to.  There will probably be more than one screw.

 6.  There will be a plug attaching the cords from the fan to the cords in the casing.  Unplug it.  

7.  Now, look for wires that say "light use" on them.  If they are not labeled, look for the wires that are obviously coming up through the hole that connects to the light kit.  Disconnect these wires by unscrewing the caps.  

8.  Recap the "light use" wires that are coming from the fan, but leave the ones that are coming up through the hole from the light kit bare.  

9.  Unscrew the light kit from the fan (which will pull the bare wires down through the hole).

10.  Replug the main cords from the casing to the fan.  

11.  Tuck all the cords in and screw the casing back onto the fan.  

12.  Go back to your fuse box and flip that switch back on.

13.  Voila!  Not so ugly fan, that nicely blends in with the ceiling...Just like Mama Taught Me!

***Beware though, we did discover we have a couple of fans in our house that have built-in lights that cannot be removed.  :(

Thanks for reading!

Onward!  You can do it too!  

NO MORE LIGHT KITS!!!