Phase III: Exterior.b./Front Porch

Exterior painted. BOOM.

Ignore the rough&tumble state of our yard... we were kinda busy.

Snooty McSnooters may not like the colours, but we are over the moon. More importantly, we are rockin' it. Boohyeah. So y'all who hate it, you need to travel more. We don't care how much you have travelled, you obviously haven't travelled enough.

This was an experience. Not only did we do all the scraping & painting by hand (the condition of the cedar siding was delicate enough to not be accessible with electric scraping or paint spraying), but we were essentially on display. Lots of staring. Lots of commentary. Lots of compliments & encouragement. Lots of meeting our more further-radius neighbours. Didn't expect that, and it was good.

the FRONT PORCH:
On the wind of inspirations, we painted it to co-exist with the Exterior palette (in olive & lime green + white), creating a breezy feeling to the space and blurring the lines between interior/exterior.
Currently housing shoes & such outdoorsy things front porches ought to do, it will probably suffer through several incarnations of furniture & placements at whim.

Features include:
A new ceramic-tile floor that was interesting to install. We used an orange dimplex over the subfloor and a silicone grout to assure the ceramic tile would be durable over the freeze-thaw climate here in SK (otherwise, ceramic tile & normal grouts will crack/break due to the temperature changes). The tile is meant to mimic the look of hardwood... pulling the dark-brown decking through into the space (furthering the exterior/interior breezeway) and in the future will pull the eye through to the dark hardwood interior flooring. Noice.
Mid-Century dresser holds some bits/bobs (reuseable grocery bags, sunglasses. etc.), but functions as a freezer in winter. Oh winter... *le sigh*.

Still deciding on a light fixture... need to find some other pieces to give this space character: an old creamer for umbrellas, a fantastic chair (or dreaming BIG: a MCM bench) and whatnot.


Next Up:
Completing the front facade: next summer (fingers crossed!)
That monumental task includes: exterior lights, side-entrance facade, tons of mulch to replace the grass, and new border wall (current wall fondly referred to as the "seagull shit" wall... apparently-as told by our neighbour Dave-this was a common technique a previous resident of 619 brought over from her home in Wales. Mmmmmkay whatevs... it's fugly & gotta go).

Then... plans for next year.

We've soared through our 2nd summer here, and are ready to dip into debt (uncomfortable territory! eeep! but thought we might join the club) to get the GARDEN in for next year... and start producing our own foods again. It.is.time.
Chickens? Where do we put the mushroom-logs? The compost bins? The bees? Many very exiting questions are beginning to be allowed to surface as we have gained some serious confidence in completing the monumental task of painting our Exterior, because it was crazy difficult, but we did it. Gold star right here.

Intermission: Autumn 2013

With the chaos of ripping our house apart & piecing it back together again slower than desired, it's easy to get a little lost, shucked, raw. Then we wake up & see something again as if for the first time, but with the warm comfort of HOME in the mix... and smile. With winter on our coattails, and hunkering down again for the long sleep indoors, there's a few nooks & crannies we want to remember from this dwindling time of season...

Phase III: Exterior/Yard (update)

Summer blew across the prairie and kept us mighty busy with houseness.

Apart from this, that, and the other things, some projects were noteworthy of completion (or near-to).

old & busted

new  hotness

Fence:
Our neighbours rock. With 9 month old Beth in tow, we ripped out & built a new fence together (no panels here, all from scratch!). New to power-tools, those people were impressively fast learners & good beer-swillers to boot. Thanks, neighbours to the North! Let's chum around again soon :)

Exterior:
We are still painting the Exterior (3 sides this year are almost complete: West-facade, South, and East) and fingers-crossed to update soon on how utterly smashing it looks. There were problems challenges to overcome as we went along (replacing much of the roof joists), but she's a healthier house now even if a little late.
Hey... ya know what? 3 storeys up is a helluva height. Who knew the Missus wasn't a fan of way the fuck up there? Well, a week of crying in fear of falling to death was worth it, that gingerbreading looks incredible (will show ya that later). Here's to doing things that scare you, Bravo!

Phase III: Exterior.a.

Colour Palette:
Hoorah! Prompted by the tardy arrival of spring on the prairie... like... yesterday... the junk that was cluttering up our brain-space cleared up (analogous to the 25' of snow that has finally started to receed), leaving room for thoughts on... ya know... stuff.

After making a b/w template of the exterior through an old skool method of scan+sketch (cuz we analog like that), we used a program called Seashore to "colour in" the house options, starting with the current WASPesque style-situation of beige + whatever...

...and then give it a little razzle-dazzle.
(Oh... those two circles represent the accent colours in accessories).

By choosing the "same" colour scheme, we could potentially save $$$ by not having to worry about triple-coating the paint for fair coverage, just a little scrape & paint ++

Alas, when we looked closer (I admit we like to blur the eyes to reduce our impending stress-level when it comes to this money-pit gorgeous old turn-of-the-century House) at the condition of the paint, it was an inevitable total re-do of what was there, so... why not get a little funkier? Yah, we couldn't come up with a good enough reason not to roll the dice either.

So, we looked at other colour schemes and plunked some of them into Seashore... like the Mod (grey + white + almost black brown)...

which is nice, but our neighbours across the street have pretty much got it cased, so moving on...
There's a building on Broadway called the "Empyreal Building/Emily's" and so we tried to emulate that theme with a little lemon-lime punch...

...which didn't sit well with us, gothicly spectacular as it is. So, with gigantic tub of Green Exterior paint in-hand (because OF COURSE WE WERE SURE. Good Lord will we ever fecking learn? Haha... I hope not!) swatches & samples were splattered on House & on paper/Seashore. Ultimately, we just ran out of time & had to choose... so carted the already neon-yellow Adirondack's (painted earlier in the year because neon.yellow) onto the boulevard with some tasty extremely alcoholic beverages and boom.

Our (future) pretties!
Green (olive), green (avocado), green (lime), yellow (neon lemon), white, and dark brown (that looks grey on here... ???) that is the same as the front door. Yah... brown shingles... we know. Live a little kk? Future fancy cedar shakes pending for when you send us piles of money for being cool :P

Yeah baby! Knockin' 'em down one by one. This house keeps gettin' better & better!

Red (or some racy Hot-Pink???) flowers & X-Mas lights are our choice of bling.

Pictures of the finished house to come... if it ever gets finished ;)

Phase III: Exterior

Exterior:
This is what she was wearing when we moved in...

...and the Realtors pic of the back-ass (looks different now with Kitchen remodel patio doors & soon to look different-er with new Library window needed from the roofing debacle, and is at the moment covered in, like, 25' of spring snow).

Features:
Cedar siding. This was a welcome boost to morale... real wood wahoo!
Character Home with great shapes & just a wee gingerbreading potential ;)
Corner lot.
Double Garage.
Lots and lots and lots of LOTS of surface area.

Deconstruction/Reconstruction:
Eaves, Soffits & Fascia:
Due to the roofing debacle and subsequent damage to the eaves, soffits & fascia (the underbits of the roofing), there is the expense of time & money to replace 90% of them. Grumble. Plus it's kinda scary to send the man way way up there, power tools in hand, fastened by only a harness... call me a worry-wort Idareyou. This will take a lot of time... there is a lot buttload of damage.

Painting:
We were given the most superb advice on painting the exterior: start with the side/s you can see, or choose to paint one side each year (the former working best for the home that just needs a re-coat in the same colour scheme). Heeding this advice... we'll start with the visible 3 sides... hahaha... and the 3 visible sides on the Garage too. Hiphiphoorah for living on a corner!
She's in rough paint-peeling shape & needing a makeover. While we must tediously scrape & re-paint her whole facade, why not in a fun colour scheme? Yah... we could not think of a good reason not to either.
So... wish us luck! Or... send us Starbucks gift cards & beer... or send us your misbehaving children to punished by having to help us slave away in the hot prairie summer sun and beer/coffee. We'll be starting come June & be at 'er all summer long......

Palette Choices:
Our unchanging elements: the front door is charcoal steel, the inner window (the part immediately framing the glass) is/will be white. Input on palette is welcome, we have not decided yet!

"Seaside"

"Mod"

"Grandora"