OMG: That house is... PURPLE!

Yes, I am painting my house purple. I am so sick and tired of every house in the Midwest being brown, yellow,white, or some variation of beige. I think that's why people perceive the Midwest as boring. Nothing fun to look at. So, in honor of my former hometown of 10 years New Orleans (please don't get destroyed by Gustav. Please.) I am painting my house purple. Here are the paint chips. The paint is from Lowe's. It's Olympic brand and the chip numbers are C 44-2 Frosted Lilac (for the stucco) and C44-4 Purple Surf for the garage door and wood accents on the front. You have to see the chips in person because they look kind of weird on a computer. My neighbor Peggy is skeptical, but I am sure it's going to look fabulous when it's finished. Even the "buttoned-up" neighbors will like it.

The garden plan

I have ambitious plans to beautify the outside of our house. Part of this is to eliminate grass,because I hate mowing, and since all of the full sun on our property is in the front, build beds large enough that I can secretly grow vegetables behind the flowers without raising the ire of the neighbors.

And then there's covering up those glamorous sink holes that showed up last year!
Here is the plan. The dark areas are the new beds. Now that the roof is finished, my goal is to dig the beds during the month of September. If all goes well, I will be able to buy stone and lay the stone retaining walls around the beds as well.

If that's done,then I will paint the house in October. I was going to post the paint chips for you today, but alas you will have to wait. I can't find them! I'll give you a hint: We're bringing a bit of New Orleans to Ohio by painting our house a purple I think our neighbors can handle

Red Shag, RIP

I had to rip out the red shag carpet in the bean's room. One of the kitties decided to use it as a potty, and no matter how many times I steam-cleaned it, the smell wouldn't come out. I'm sad. I have loved that carpet since the first time we looked at this house. 70s red shag. Who wouldn't love that?

Luckily, the bean room has wood floors like those in the rest of the house. There are some damaged spots, but it will do for now.

The pounding never stops

We're currently getting a new roof. Boy. It sounds like those guys are pounding the nails right into the side of my head. We just finished day four of pounding. And not short days-- 12 hour days. It's taking a long time because our house has two layers of really old, thick shingles on it. The oldest layer is the home's original roof. You try scraping off 50 year old nails. And yet, they still have one more day.

It's very disruptive, but I am happy. The roof is the last big, expensive mandatory no-fun project we have left. (That I know of...) We've done the furnace and new windows. Everything else is either decor or improvement, or eco-geek stuff. If we can come up with the cash, we want to get solar panels in a couple of years. How oll would that be?

The house is really ugly right now.

Boy, things really do have to get worse before they get better. I've suffered through 4 days of pounding, thanks to the crew tearing off two layers of shingles and putting on a new roof. Boy is it loud. And the house looks awful. Shingles every where. I'm really happy I put off my big ambitious landscaping project until this was done. I will post a line drawing of my flower bed plan this weekend. It will be awesome, and it will also prove to the neighbors that I do have some civic pride and am not content with being the ugly house in the neighborhood. My lawn has always raised eyebrows, but really became pretty embarrasing last fall when part of it collapsed!

Yes, right after the geothermal heating lines were put in the yard, we covered it with dirt and laid sod (for the neighbors sake. I could care less...). Then, two weeks later two sinklines appeared, where the furnace lines run to the house. They're still there!

I hope to fix them when I do the flower beds. We'll see.