House Bath, New Gate Underway and Historical Fences

I had the house pressure washed yesterday in preparation for (eventual) painting . . . and because it really, really needed it.  I’ve posted other photos of the front of the house. From far away, it doesn’t look bad. 

But up close . . .

Ew! And that wasn’t even a particularly bad spot. It looks SO much better now.

I have been thinking about exterior colors since I bought the place. The neighborhood is full of colorfully painted craftsman bungalows. I plan to do a tour for you soon because they are really worth seeing. I want my house to look cheerful and fun, but not obnoxious. I love light turquoise, but the house across the street from me is turquoise. Next to it is a yellow house, then a green. It might look weird to have turquoise houses across the street from one another. 

But what color can I paint that isn’t going to be boring, or make me look like a copycat? Red and purple are out. I thought about pale grey with turquoise trim, but I don’t think it will look cheerful enough. 

Today I had the thought to go ahead and paint it light turquoise like I originally wanted, but paint some of the trim (not all) a deep salmon/coral/terra cotta color. The rest of the trim will stay white. What do you think?

Benjamin Moore's Palladian Blue and Dark Salmon

In other (awesome) news, P is building me a beautiful craftsman gate. The existing gate is three feet tall and chain link. Roni in her younger days could leap six foot gates in a single bound. She’s older now, but a three foot gate is not enough to discourage wandering. P had a five foot width of something like chicken wire that we rolled out next to the gate and secured it with metal ties. It’s kept her in the yard so far.

I don’t think P knew quite what he was getting into when he said he’d build me a gate. No plain picket gate would do for my craftsman bungalow. These were the photos I showed him of what I wanted.

Gate design by Kirsh-Korff

Gate design by Kirsh-Korff

Here is my gate under construction.

It’s made of Texas red cedar and smells amazing! This is the back side of the gate. The back side of cedar is rough, the front is smooth. The front of the gate is smooth and there are no nail holes showing at all. It’s so, so pretty and it doesn't even have the small pickets at the top yet. The weather is not cooperating  today so my gate will have to wait to be completed. Once hung, it will be stained similarly to the one in the inspiration photo.

You can see that the fence along the south side of the property is in pristine condition. When P removed a few boards to sink the post for the gate, he discovered the remains of what was probable the original fence.

The metal bar and twisted wire are the old fence. The wide boards are the current crappy fence.

If you look closely you can see the twisted wire that used to hold the wooden pickets—now completely rotted away. I will replace this fence at some point but for now it keeps Roni from checking out the neighbors yard.