Painting the House, Day Three

The rotted front "flower box" is gone, and it suprised me how little separated the inside from the outside.  I mean, I have this illusion that when I'm in my house, I'm protected from the elements, the world, the bugs, but really, it was just a thin piece of sheetrock.  Which now has a couple of holes in it.

I removed the number plate that had been there since our first year, a bittersweet moment as it had to be destroyed to be removed.  Nothing is permanent.  This also shows our array of paint samples (the dark gray patch in the center is our current house color), as we finally nailed it Wednesday night: Behr's Cream Yellow, lightened by 25%.

Which necessitated a visit to Home Depot with the painter on Thursday morning, as our closest store had not yet switched over to the low VOC compounds and we could still get the color we wanted.  Or, at least that was the story.

So much depends upon a red wheelbarrow?

On to the next sampling: the front door.
On the left: Heritage Red Ext. RM by Benjamin Moore.
On the right: Million Dollar Red 2003-10, also by Benjamin Moore.

I'm in the Million Dollar Red category of fan, if only to pay homage for the depletion of the savings that all the extra add-ons have incurred.  But that's cynical, I suppose, and how it always goes when you start a Home Improvement project.  There's a reason our Lowe's and our Home Depot are only a mile from each other.

So, no Micky's Pants.  Instead, a house with a Million Dollar Red front door.  I do like the orangey-red on the left, a sort of Chinese/Japanese vermillion, but given the reflective qualities of our little front door alcove (above) and the fact that it will all surfaces around it will be painted in cream yellow, tells me the red on the right is probably more like it.

Did I tell you it's raining?  So no painters today.  Instead we have the garage door people.  We cleared most of the storage side of the garage into a neat dispersion of goods (junk?) across the back of the garage in order to clear space.  I came in first in the number of storage containers, followed only by our last son, Peter, who still has not cleared out his childhood treasures, even though he's married and lives in one house and owns another.  I may help that along. As far as my collection, which can also be considered the house/quilt/books collection?  Looks like a trip to the thrift store drop-off is in our future.  Soon enough, for besides the garage door replacement today, I also need to finish grading the essays from this week, as well as the stack of Fiction Exams.

Who thought the three words "painting the house" would involve so many choices, expend so much energy?  Stop that laughing out there.