Paint Color!

Excitement ensued today at Acorn Cottage as we finally applied the new body color to the old siding.

We looked at several greys and, thanks to @sarahyerger19 on Instagram, we selected Sherwin William's "Dovetail" Grey. Thank you Sarah. It's perfect.

Here's a photo of the same corner showing the dark brown that was everywhere on the house when we bought it. The house just merged into the shadows and all the nice details were lost.

After removing old siding from the construction area and various spots inside, (I'll tell you about that later) we scraped off the big chunks of old paint, patched the holes, and reused the old clear heart (now unobtainable) redwood boards.

They looked pretty bad when we first fitted them around the new windows, but after caulking, priming, and two coats of paint, they looked much better.

Wow! What a difference.

 Classic details: white trim, grey siding, and nautical lighting. I can hardly wait for the Calypso Blue door color.

Stay tuned.

June Garden Report

It's June and summer flowers should be making a showing, but all we've got are these Flamingo flowers, Justicia carnea.

If you look closely at the leaves you might notice holes. Two weeks ago we had a horrible hailstorm that shredded tender leaves and caused us to run for our boots and coats. We got almost an inch of rain/hail in an hour. Very unusual weather for us.

We also have lots of Mock orange, philadelphus coronarius.

And an Oak leaf hydrangea that's blooming.

And oleanders. Ugh. I'm not a fan of oleanders. When I see them I'm reminded of the hundreds of miles of dusty, overgrown, freeway median plantings we used to have here in California.

But these peach colored ones are actually pretty, so they might survive my ruthless shears.

A favorite of mine is star jasmine with its sweet scent. Next door has a huge ham radio antenna that's covered with it, so the whole neighborhood enjoys its fragrance.

While I'm contemplating my lack of summer color, I'm gazing longingly across the street at my old house with its roses, hydrangeas, and peonies. And crying a little.....