Our lives were turned a bit upside-down this week when we had a new roof installed. We had been planning this job for some time - everytime there was a storm, a few more old, brittle shingles would blow off the roof and I would lie in bed awake, waiting for the ceiling to fall in. Anyhow - we found someone to do the job, and they called on Friday, saying they were coming on Monday. My Nanna arrived on Sunday to mind Milo - he would have been frightened in the house alone while we were at work, listening to the workers pounding on the roof. A few days and a gazillion dollars later (well, not quite - but close) we have a new roof! The picture above is our house, when we first moved in....
...and this is how it looks now. Our house was built in the 1920s, and moved to this spot in the 1950s. The lady next door says she can remember our house coming up the street on a truck! Sometime in the '70s or '80s, the exterior was uglifed with aluminum siding, plastic shutters, plywood porch railing, and a colour scheme that can only be described as...odd. Salmon, poo brown and grey - what were they thinking?!!? Luckily, the inside remains pretty much untouched with lots of 1920s cottage charm - well, actually - not so lucky in terms of the bathroom and kitchen - but this will all change someday.Anyhow, having the new roof really makes me want to change the color of the house. I am going back and forth between something classic and neutral, or a playful colourful palette that you might find in Lunenburg - a village on the coast where every house is painted a beautiful, bright colour. I've heard that fisherman in Nova Scotia just used to paint their houses with whatever paint was left over from painting their boats - lots of bold, bright hues. I just can't decide, so I'm putting it out there - any suggestions?
3 comments:
Mr. Happy and I drove all over Halifax with our neighbour when we were trying to choose paint colours. We also searched online for Arts & Crafts colours... and then we threw everything out the window, picked green, with white trim, painted the doors yellow and the foundation and stairs black. We love it.
The only thing we might have changed if we had been thinking clearly: We would have used a darker green to help absorb heat from the sun in the winter.
In California we have there nasty Devil winds called The Santa Ana Winds (they did not help out one bit when 1/2 the state was on fire last fall). One year the winds blew off part of the roof! it lanted in the middle of our cul-de-sac. Scary stuff. AND having lived in 2 previous houses that leaked every time it rained, a new roof is a dream (the seller of our new house put one one before we bought it).
Being a HUGE fan of green, Stef's suggestion gets a big nod from me.
Your house is very cute.
Hey Trudi, I'll bring the panit colour selection "booklet" down to the city this week and you can have a look. It does a great job of putting colours together... Have fun with it I say. See you soon.
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