Haint Blue Porches lovely?!

Hello. Fancy meeting you here.

 

So, following torrential rainstorms like the one we had last night, it's always refreshing to see the pretty blue sky the next morning.... It is NOT however, refreshing to see a tree on your house, or 27,000 little branches in your yard that you now get the sheer, back breaking joy of picking up, or your trash cans are in the middle of the street with the contents spewed out for the neighbors to see...

 

...ehehehe...uhhhh, who's giant stack of 1970's Playboy magazines are those?! haha...not mine!....and that empty, economy sized bag of pork rinds....not mine either!!....

 

Yeah, rainstorms are definitely not always fun...

 

They are kind of cool to watch from a good front porch though...

 

   I've never had a really good front porch before at any home I've ever lived in, so I am VERY excited to experience our first good rainstorm next spring at the Farmhouse.  I'll hear that first crack of thunder and my head will pop up like one of those meerkats on Animal Planet, I'll gather everyone up, grab some blankets and cups of something hot and I'll shove everyone out onto the porch to watch the show and smell the sweet rain-scented air...

 

...ahhhh I can see it now....

 

..... sitting with my little ones, all wrapped up, listening to the rain, oohing and ahhing over the lightning (mother of the year award right here) , having to snuggle a little tighter when a brisk breeze goes by, and then a sudden gale force wind will pelt us all with water like we are front seat at Sea World and my kids will have complete meltdowns and the fun will be over. Everyone back inside...

 

It was good while it lasted :) 

 

That does get me thinking more about porches though.  Not about how my hands still hurt from screwing on 250 spindles, or how it took 2 hours to prime 20 of those spindles before I just gave up, or how my hands are now not only in pain, but since I've been caulking around all the front porch windows that I'm pretty sure my hands are going to look like gnarled pumpkin vines by the time I'm finished....no no, it gets me thinking about the end result...how lovely it will be once the windows are sealed, the spindles, railings and columns are painted, the shutters are installed, and my hand bones have been reset...that's what I'm thinking about :)

 

So, I know I recently shared with you my exterior paint blunder in my last post... yes, I will be repurchasing my paint...the same color I had to start with before I got stupid and tinted it....

 

 

See the Craigslist ad here.... I acted like my husband wrote it so that complete strangers wouldn't judge me...

 

Anyways. back to my porch.  The framers who have been helping us out are about at the end of their stay, but the last thing they have to do before wrapping up, is finish installing our traditional beadboard porch ceiling.  I am soooo excited for them to be done, so I can start painting!!! 


Like any good old traditional porch ceiling, I plan to paint it blue.  In the south, where this tradition started a long ways back, they call this Haint Blue.  It's just the name they give blue porch ceilings I guess... I've read different rumors as to the reasons behind why southerners started painting their porch ceilings blue, and the two main reasons I've came across, are to either keep away bugs, or to keep away spirits...

...Now, don't me wrong, I love a daddy longlegs infestation or a good old fashioned exorcism as much as the next guy, but I think on this one, I'm going to follow suit and paint it blue....

I'm glad our southern ancestors chose blue...I mean, look at the gorgeousness!!...

 

...and here's another little porch picture that also happens to have the same siding color we will have after I repurchase my Westhighland White.... 

 

 

 

I think I showed you this picture in my previous post, but I just love it. So clean and pretty.... now all it needs is a crazy 3 year old, two old mangy dogs, and a half naked baby dragging a filthy blankie that she won't let me wash, and it'll be home :)

 

 

 

Here's what I have completed so far...

 



 

Again, as soon as I finish caulking windows and trim on the entire house, and then let my hands heal from squeezing the life out of my "caulking gun piping bag"...

 

 

...then I can get to painting....

 

...oh can I feel the neck pain coming on...

 

 

:) ashley

 

 

My $600 Mistake...

Hello there. 

I hope you had a happy and productive weekend.

 

Mine was okay, but "productive" definitely didn't makes in way into my schedule.  I just can't seem to find a good 4-5 hours of uninterrupted "me time", like, ever.   I know it's hard these days since my husband is gone a lot working on the house, and I SUPPOSE that takes precedence over making shutters, reupholstering dining chair seats, or making pretty door wreathes, but still...

...and if I take my girls out with me to work on a project, approximately 4 minutes into it, I will 100% of the time, hear one of the following:

 

                                               1. I have to go potty.

                                               2. mama, I need a snack

                                               3. olive took my stick!

                                               4. hold me mama. hold me!

                                               5. Can you pull us in the wagon?

                                               6. where's my blankie!

                                               7. APPIE JUICE!!

                                               8. MOM! come clean this pigeon poop!

                                               9. MOM! come look at all these bees!

                                              10. MOM! help me ride the big girl bike!

                                              11. MOM! I want the other bike! The one Ollie has!

                                              12. I want to go to the park!
                                              13. I want daddy!

                                              14. MOM! That tool is TOO LOUD!

                                              15. Mom, I want to go in and watch cartoons.

                                              16. Mom, are you done yet?

                                              17.  I pooped...

 

So, yeah, needless to say, when it's just me and the girls, I can't do stuff house related.  They just aren't quite at the "self-entertaining" age yet I suppose....either that or it's all a conspiracy between them and their father to drive me to madness.

 

So, anyways, that was my weekend. 

 

In addition to getting nothing done, I did also manage to realize that I made a big mistake.

 

I know. I know. It's unfathomable.

 

I guess you wouldn't necessarily have to call it a "mistake" per se, but to me, it was a big ole' fat WHOPPER of one.  It was one of those moments when you realize that after months of trying to make a decision, that you should have stuck with your first choice.

 

My big ole' WHOPPER, was the exterior paint of the house.  Here's a little back story...

 

So starting before we even broke ground, I had been searching day and night for the "perfect white" to paint our Farmhouse.  I had known from the beginning that I wanted the classic, white farmhouse with dark shutters, a dark-ish roof, and pops of color in the doors and landscaping.  It took me MONTHS, plus hours upon hours upon hours and bottle upon bottle upon bottle of wine to find the perfect color.  Thank goodness for www.Houzz.com for making the search a little less painful than it might have been otherwise. I searched hundreds of pictures of houses, asking questions to the home owners/architects that posted the photos. That was the helpful part... you can imagine my frustration each time I would find a picture online of the "perfect white" only to have no way of finding out the exact color white that it was...

 

.....I know, listening to me talk about my search for white paint has to be right up there with your wedding day or the birth of your children....

 

So, finally, one day I found it...the PERFECT white. The kind of white that wasn't generic and blah like copy paper, and wasn't cold and icy either. It was perfect.... It was warm and cozy and I knew it would give our home the inviting glow I was looking for.  It was sure to make our guests feel at ease, the FedEx guy was sure to linger in his truck a little longer, and potential trespassers were sure to stop, smile, and go enroll in college courses instead.

 

It was Westhighland White, by Sherwin Williams....

  



 

Traditional Exterior by Biloxi Architects & Designers RJ Elder Design

 

 

I know it may just appear white, but believe me, after searching for months, you start to get an eye for which whites are cool, which are warm, which are actually tan, and which look like they belong in a copy machine.

 

This particular white has a shot of deep gold in it, so once it's up on a house, it gives it a bit of a warm glow.

 

I was in love. It took my breath away and made me feel excited....

.... like that scene in the Notebook, with the rain and the boat....

....yeah, you know ;)...

It felt like that.

I marched my butt over to Sherwin Williams during one of their 30% off sales (because I'm not part of the royal family) and with the help of the paint guy, we determined I would need about 15 gallons to cover the house. I gave the okay, and 20 minutes and $600 later, I was the proud owner of 3 big, heavy 5 gallon buckets of Westhighland White.  I loaded the buckets in the car lovingly as if I were a new mother going home from the hospital...except I threw these babies in trunk... and off we went.

 

So, what is the big mistake? Well, first off, buying paint two months ahead of time is a bad idea.  Why? Because if you have a slightly neurotic mind like my own, you begin to wonder if maybe there was a better color out there... maybe you should have gave it more thought, maybe having a darker siding color and then a light trim and porch would look better... should I switch to decaf? should I buy skinny jeans? Should I give up carbs?!

...you start thinking crazy and irrational...

 

....so naturally, that pink mass of trouble up in my skull began thinking that maybe we should tint our perfect white to a darker color so that the trim would stand out... 

 

...always stick with your first choice people...

 

I ended up over-thinking it, convinced my husband that it was the better choice, bribed him with a smile and dinner of his choice in exchange for taking the heavy buckets back out to the car, and I ended up hauling my perfect white back to Sherwin Williams to have them tint it too Modern Gray, a lovely, slightly tan, slightly gray, but overall a very light color.  I also had them throw in some new Bright White paint for the trim...

 

Here was my inspiration picture...

 

 

See how the siding is just barely darker than the white trim? I really liked that.  It's not a warm color scheme like the Westhighland White was, but it's clean and nice.... I never found out for sure what the exact color of the paint on this house was, but I was able to find out that it was indeed Sherwin Williams, so I had that info at least.

So, a couple days ago I busted out the gray and painted a small section on the back side of the house, and to my horror, it looked cold and lavender... I started to sweat...

I frantically moved around to the front of the house where the light was better and painted a larger section....better, but it didn't give me that "oh yeah! this IS the color! I'm a genius!"...

.... I more just stood there, all body weight on one leg, arms crossed with one hand up to my chin, head cocked, with that "huh" look...

 
See? It's just not really exciting me...

...again, I know its just light gray....
...I'm sorry I didn't pick darker more exciting colors, geez...

I know we still have shutters and the porch to paint too, but I guess I was hoping for that feeling of "oooh, I really like this! I'm excited to see how it looks on the whole house! Good job self! Suck it, the Jones'!"

.... instead I was just thinking, "hmm. This is like the season ending of the Sopranos."

Again, not that white is some crazy adventurous color, but still, at least its classic and pretty.  The color up above here just kind of makes me think of cement dust...

So, any thoughts?

I'm 99% sure I'm gonna march my butt back to Sherwin Williams and re-purchase the Westhighland White...

...that makes me want to slap myself in the face just for saying that...ugh...

...dear God, I hope the same paint guy isn't there because I may die...

Looks like I am DEFINITELY painting this house myself now to make up the cost..

Painting party anyone?!?!?


Thanks for listening once again, 

:) Ashley