Little Mid Century Modern House on the Prairie: March 2012

Mar 19, 2012

What Lies Beneath...

One of our biggest fears is what lies beneath the vinyl siding on our house. I'm always spouting off to my clients about the evils of vinyl siding. And yet.... we have old vinyl siding on our house. Removing the siding has been a big stress for us and an unplanned expense (if we need new siding) that makes it more conducive to just leave the damn stuff on.

It was fairly mild yesterday, and maybe hubby just felt the need to rip something apart, so he took off a portion of the siding on an inconspicuous side of the house.

Apart from a few nail holes, looks as good as 55 year old siding can look! (It was originally red)

Mar 17, 2012

House Colour Trial

Hubby picked up some paint colours today at Benjamin Moore to try on the house. The first couple were too light, so he went back to pick up a black range. I've been thinking of the downside of painting a house black or dark black grey:

trouble finding the house at night
ear marked as local 'haunted house'
turn house into the inside of the sun in the summer

Lot's to consider here. Anyhow, here is the results of our quest for the perfect black/grey + drama door. Hot damn I'm lucky hubby and I have the same taste in colours/decor/design.

The new black roof and downspouts from our hail damage claim. Current state: challenged. That dirt patch on the right is not a grave, it's a garden. I keep telling hubby we need to make it bigger, otherwise it looks like something fishy is going on our house.

Picking out colours at Benjamin Moore.

This is the base colour we settled on for body, trim and sash: BM Wrought iron. And this aqua (BM Aruba Blue) sample is an option for the doors - Gloss finish of course. This blue is my fav.

How about a pink door (BM Peony) - of course this received top votes from the girls.

BM Mandarin Orange. This one is hubby's favourite.


BM Tangy Orange. This one is actually not as 'poppy' as I had hoped. Hubby thinks it would make us look like we're trying too hard to be cool.


Apparently this was my colour inspiration for the doors. Thanks Lalaloopsy.

House Colours Part II

So it's been a while since I've posted.... Because I've been WORKING. At least 12 hours a day since January. And you know what happens when you work 12 hours a day with between 4 to 6 hours of sleep per night? You get really sick. Sick enough that your doctor tells you to take a month off, but you say no way, two days, then meet in the middle at a week. I see that she is rolling her eyes while she writes me a prescription.

So this week, for the first time in my life, I'm on sick leave for a bad virus/exhaustion. This leaves me oodles of time to plan for the trillions of things we need to do to our house this year that I haven't had time to do.

First on the list is to finalize house colours. I was in Cabo last week with the fam and my bestie and when I wasn't working (seriously - it's been bad), I was grilling her for help with house colours. She's pretty straight forward with things. I told her I couldn't find something that works with the brick wall in the front. So she was all "so paint it out". Hunh.

That opens up a whole new world for me and colours as what I really want is a darker neutral house with a pop colour door. And I'm still digging the all one colour house (body, trim, sash) with a punch coloured door like lime or smurf blue. Jay wants to paint out the garage door in the same punch colour. (smart) I've assembled a collection of my favourites: