With Siding

Siding on the side, waiting to be recycled.

A fresh coat of paint in my favorite colors: green and red.

Welcome to our newly painted home…

The front porch, so sweet!

Me, taking a picture of Milo looking out at the new colors.

The back yard from the upstairs – the lawn furniture resides where the dead BMW once did.

When Gregory and I came to Portland for our house hunting trip ten years ago, we looked at twenty five houses in four days.  Ooh la la! What an overwhelming and wholly taxing experience.  At the end, when we were seated in the office of our realtor, Carol Zamba (I wonder if she’s still selling houses?), and I chose this house, Gregory and Carol gave a slightly horrified stereo response.  “That one?”

While I extolled the house’s virtues – it faces west (for shady summer afternoons in the back yard), it has a large lot with a detatched garage, the right amount of bedrooms (four – ours, guest, tv, and office), and a full basement – they thought about the alligator living in a giant aquarium in the dining room, the peeling paint, the piles of garbage on the back porch and basement, the siding on one half of the house, and oh, yeah, the dead BMW nestled in the tall weeds in the back.  Yes, that one.

The key, for me, was a long term vision.  I could see us turning that house into our home, and we have, slowly but surely, bit by bit.

So, this is our humble abode’s tranformation to half-sided and okay to painted and lovely.  We dreaded this awful project for ten long years – take off the siding?  finish the job?  paint it?  We finally decided to take it off, and then paint the whole house in a new Colleen and Gregory color scheme.  I am so happy we did, for I never really liked that blue color, not being my choice and all.  This green however, I am in love with it.  It looks so lovely with the red roof and the matching windows.  I am happy, happy, happy.  I finally have the exterior of my dreams.  Now for the bathroom and basement.  All in good time…

p.s. This project is what kept me from posting sooner.  It is hard to focus with five loud men painting up a storm!