Lovely --

David finished painting most of the front porch today and it looks wonderful. 

 Can't BELIEVE how much better it is without that yellow door! And even better - he spray painted all the wicker furniture to match the door and the shutters.

Here it is now - dark dark teal door, shutters and wicker furniture.  White door trim and porch posts.

 

Here it is painted the way I THOUGHT I wanted it.  Medium teal shutters with dark teal trim and a YELLOW door.  NOT GOOD! 

I really really like the way it looks now -- a lot less tacky.

 

And next week he's going to add a trim piece to the top of the door.

It'll be the same sort of trim that's on the doors inside, like the bedroom door below.  He added it to that one a while back.  All the doors we added when we renovated the house have that kind of trim, but this particular door wasn't moved or changed so it didn't have the trim until he put it on. 

This picture was taken while our bedroom was still green -- before David re-painted it. (It's tan now - see below).

You know, mom used to paint all her rooms tan and I thought that was awful.  But now I find myself painting a lot of my own rooms tan -- though not all of them.  At least not so far.  ;-D.  I like that it makes it possible to use about any additional color in a room, particularly a bedroom.  Change the bedspread and curtains and voila!  It's instantly redecorated. 

 

David also got the inside of the barn painted this week.  Next week he's going to install those heavy stall liners, and then it will just be a matter of finishing up the electrical and plumbing.  Can't WAIT.  But in the meantime, we will be able to put up the hooks and racks and things and finally know where things are again.  At last!  

 

And next week he's going to upgrade the sleeping porch as well.  He's going to move the electrical outlet out there over behind the bed so the dogs . . . okay - so JOEY can't chew on the cords.   I have to unplug everything every morning now so Joey won't be able to eat them!  And I still worry that he may one day chew on the box itself! 

 

David is also going to put up the curtain rod supports on that sleeping porch so I can put up those outdoor curtains I bought a couple weeks back.  Lovely. 

 

Mark laughs at me because we have a house that's more than 3000 square feet -- and I still sleep outside often!  But I absolutely LOVE the sound of the crickets and frogs and birds and squirrels and things.  And I love the fact that when I wake up in the morning and look out the windows, Duke, Lizzie and Arthur are all standing right outside staring at the porch!  I'd like to think it's because they love me, but in fact, they KNOW that if I get up they'll get to eat shortly.  ;-D

 

Oh - and speaking of Duke . . . I went outside this afternoon to see how the porch painting was progressing and, uh-oh -- there was Duke, pulling hay out of that new hay storage building. 

 

David had painted the interior of the doors in case water runs down them sometime, so he had left the doors open and, although I watched him painting them, I didn't think to lock the gate to keep the horses out of that paddock. Now Duke NEVER goes into that front paddock, but hey -- he obviously knows when that new hay is available anywhere!