Primed and Painted.

The painters have been here for a few days, doing some good work around the house. There's a lot of stucco patching, and almost all of the wood pieces needed to be completely replaced on the sides of the house, either from dry rot or from termites. This place is a hellhole!

I am really pleased with how it's all looking! The yellow we picked is a great match for the existing house color (obviously we are having the entire house painted, but we wanted to stick as close to the original color as possible) and the blue really pops against it.

Here is a crummy before photo from a cloudy afternoon. All of the red (except for the roof, obviously) are going to be painted blue - the eaves, that piece above the garage, and the bench that runs underneath the kids bedroom windows.

Beautiful, welcoming blue door!

Cheery (but not TOO cheery) yellow on the back side of the house. That little shelf under the kitchen window is going to be painted blue, as is the side door into the garage.

The painters are hoping to be mostly finished by the end of the day. Tomorrow the patio cover workers are coming to put the patio cover in, AND the tree company is coming to clean up two trees and take out another. AND the painters should be finishing up in the front. That will leave only new gates, and new landscaping and we'll be done. This whole project has been much quicker and easier than I thought, and it's already been such a big improvement.

Of course, now things looking nice outside makes me want to re-do the bathrooms post haste. Except for the part where we'd have construction inside the house and actually be redoing the bathrooms. I don't want to make any more design choices! I just want them done! I guess the saving grace is that the guest bathroom is the better looking of the two, and so people rarely go in and see our cheap and garish looking master bathroom of shame (with bonus cat fur, because Thor spends 80% of his life sleeping on the counter in there.)

Today we had a trip to visit the knitters at Granny Janny's, since Adam was napping through lunch. While we were hanging out, Jan mentioned to Ellie about a raccoon who had left muddy foot prints on her deck, so on the way home I got to listen to an extended narrative about raccoons and possums. Raccoons have long claws and they scratch lots of things. Trees. Decks. Rocks. Plants. And then out of nowhere, Ellie asks "mama, do you know what color is possum barf?" Umm... no. Hadn't thought about it. Apparently, it's white, per Ellie. From when a possum gets an upset tummy. That kid loves varmints.