Paintin' a House...

The (what seemed like) myriad of color choices.

A patchwork quilt of color options. By no means is this an artistic statement.

At least I'll have help painting the house (whether I need it or not).

...nothing's more funner, more easier dunner. Ok, nevermind the lame reference to Tom Sawyer. Painting a house is a bit of an undertaking, to say the very least. We've spent months talking about colors and styles. Then, I spent hours testing 14 different colors. (The "patchwork" pictures above show several of the test runs. Not counting the black we already had, I bought 13 quarts of different colors. Believe me, I'd rather make a $4 mistake on a quart of paint 11 times than a $400 mistake once.) What gave us the most trouble with picking colors for the trim and walls was finding something that coordinated with the stone wall that dominates the front of our house. Many of the colors we liked ended up looking too cool/cold painted next to the stone. We finally settled on a charcoal gray for the trim (which we had Sherwin-Williams color match from the color sample for our new gutters) and Intellectual Gray, which looks more like a khaki than a gray. The combination is quite striking. I'll post pictures of house in progress soon.

Our Version of a Mid-Century Modern Toy Box

Storage has been a big issue for us, namely hiding the stray toys that scream, "This entire house is a playground. Adults need not reside here." The usual suspects for this storage solution is open shelving with baskets of some sort. That seemed ok, but it was a little too predictable. I had even considered a truck box on casters. Perhaps that would have been too industrial. Then, a friend gave us a stereo/record cabinet he saved from the dumpster. It had the mid-century look we like and a hinged opening on top (a perfect candidate for a toy box) but needed a little love and some gutting. I realize that some people out there will consider it downright reckless behavior to gut a 1960s RCA wood record credenza (that works!!!), but it was free (destined for the dump, I remind you) and we needed some storage. We're couldn't be happier with the end result. And for those of you who are still convinced that we committed a sin...pray for us.