I "Shutter" to Think

When we first pulled up to this house on Staffordshire Court Circle NW (world's most ridiculous and redundant street address) we thought it looked pretty good.  It just needed a little paint here and there.  Actually the picture below was AFTER I painted the front door and we had replaced the brass lights.  The door was originally forest green, then a nice rust color.  Bleh!  I painted it charcoal.  Not much of an improvement, but at least of this decade.

Painting the door wasn't cutting it.  So we painted all of the trim white.  Are you shocked?  I just love clean, crisp white trim.  We did this in the fall before the temps got too cool for exterior painting, but these are the only photos I can find.  All decked out with Christmas wreaths.

That was phase ONE.  I wasn't loving the khaki green shutters or the gray door for that matter.  I was happy with the white trim.  So I kept going and painted the garage doors.

EASY! and no drama.  But drama was heading my way.  I wanted to paint the shutters when the weather warmed up.  I actually bought a gallon of black paint for them when I bought the white trim paint.  But by the time it warmed up, I had changed my mind.  I wanted gray shutters.  Of course the gray door that didn't look so great to start with had to change.  Yay more paint!!  I wanted a medium gray for the shutters.  I had just bought and used my first Annie Sloan paint and loved the color.  I had used it HERE

And HERE

An all around good gray.  It's called French Linen.  Well . . . I didn't want to spend a fortune to buy enough Annie Sloan paint to do my shutters, plus although the website said they use it for exteriors, I wasn't so confident.  I'll just match it, I thought.  I thought wrong.  I had Home Depot try to match it.  At least at Home Depot I could buy $3 samples, but when they were unsuccessful, I tried Sherwin Williams.  All they do is paint right?  They tried twice and I had to buy two quarts at almost $20 a piece.  That trickster Annie Sloan had somehow made it so people had to buy her paint.  I still didn't think chalk paint would hold up, so I went to my Benjamin Moore paint deck and found a color that looked like the French Linen.  It was called Galveston Gray.  It was almost identical.  GRRRR!  Here's a pic of me trying to get it right.

I painted all of the lower shutters myself and my sweet, reluctant, daredevil husband did all of the uppers.  Everything was looking awesome UNTIL . . . I painted the shutters on the siding.  Sad face.  Ignore the yellow side door, that's next.

The gray almost looked like the same color as the tan siding.  But this was the last shutter that we painted, and I was not about to tell my sweet, reluctant, daredevil husband that we needed to choose a new color.  Especially after all the Annie Sloan drama.  I am not THAT dumb.  So I moved onto the door.  SPOILER ALERT in the last photo!!

I had a few colors in mind.  Yellow, robin egg blue or teal.  Funny thing.  Looking at this photo makes me realize that I'd tried to paint the door a lighter gray than the charcoal at some point I guess!  My poor neighbor across from me.  I'd call her and say "which one?"  She'd look out her window and give me her opinion. 

As you've probably deduced, I went with yellow.  Concord Ivory to be exact by Benjamin Moore.  I still like those other two colors.  Maybe another day when I'm bored.  Honestly, I don't remember if the below pics are Concord Ivory or Hawthorne Yellow.  Hawthorne Yellow was a little too bright.  It doesn't look this bright in real life.

And it remained in this state for 2 years.

Yes, I know how ridiculous I am, but it's just sorta my thing.  It makes me happy to paint things.  (AND by the way, I did get on Sherwin Williams and tried out different shutter and door colors on a picture of my own house that I downloaded before I started buying samples.)  I was outside one day and just was sick of the shutters over the garage fading into the siding.  I wanted something that popped.  So I tried darker grays, black (the paint I had bought 3 years before) and navy.

I decided in the process that I was fighting the tan siding and orange brick.  I really wanted a gray house, but I am not going to paint the siding and I don't think the HOA would be thrilled if I painted the brick as much as I'd like to.  Well, have someone else paint it for me.  So I chose Hale Navy by Benjamin Moore.  I liked it with the yellow.  The brick looked okay and I loved it on the siding.

I liked it all, so I moved around the front of the house and painted all of the bottom shutters navy.  Corey agreed to take down the upper ones, so that I could paint them.  It required more coats than the last time and I didn't want him up on the ladder for that long.  Now here comes some more drama.  When the light hits the front ones in the afternoon, they sorta look (dare I say?) purple.  I panicked.  Of course I did right.  Come on this was the second time painting the shutters in 3 years and I wanted to get it right, so I went and bought a darker navy.  I tried it on one set of shutters and it looked just plain old black.  I don't really want to talk about how long I stared at the stupid shutters at all different times of the day.  My poor across the street neighbor sat with me on the lawn at her house discussing the subtle nuances of the two navy choices.  I already said that I know I'm ridiculous.  Stop laughing!

See that it looks black?  I wasn't ready to give up my navy.  In hindsight, I probably should have gone with the darker navy.  Or just removed all the shutters altogether.  I think if I ever build a house, I will forego shutters.

Darker navy on the left.  Hale Navy on the right.

The conclusion that we came to was that the best color for the brick was a color that I wasn't willing to paint them.  Somewhere in the olive family or khaki green like they were when we moved in.  Originally they were forest green.  HELLO 1993!  Here's what I stared at for days.  The neighbors probably thought I was starting a new thing.  Sorta like the upper cabinets and lower cabinets being different colors thing.  Which might be a future project, but I digress.

Wow, the lawn looks really green.

I got so fed up thinking about it, not to mention having to repaint all the lower shutters, that I went with Hale Navy.  Got those suckers painted and back up, and washed my hands of it.  Let me sum up.  I like the navy shutters better than the gray ones, and I will never paint them again.  At least I will never involve my husband in painting the shutters ever again.  POOR GUY!

Remember before?

It wasn't hideous before, but I like it better now.  I might hire someone with a really tall ladder and no fear to paint the trim on the roof line white.  I'm not sending Corey back up on that ladder; not that he would do it anyway.

Hell Froze Over

We got a dog . . . last summer, and it's taken me this long to come to terms with it enough to blog about it.  Not really, well sorta.  It was all me.  I have no one to blame.  It all started innocently enough.  I was worried about my oldest boy.  I felt like he needed some help coming out of his shell so to speak.  I'm not going to say the God wanted me to get him a dog, but I felt a little inspired.  I researched dogs for 8 months, scoured the Internet and even read a book about puppies.

The problem?  Corey did not want a dog.  It was probably for the best in the long run that it was me trying to convince him.  I could hardly believe myself.  He agreed to let me give it a go, and I started searching for our puppy.  I didn't want one that was too big or too tiny.  I wanted a good family friendly dog.  Most top family dogs were large, so when I saw a beagle on the top ten list, I thought it was a good choice.  I checked with the AKC (American Kennel Club) for good breeders.  I didn't want to promote backyard breeders or puppy mills for sure.  I found a breeder near our home who sent me a picture of a little boy puppy that was available.  I really wanted a girl.

I can hear all of you right now "AWWWW".  Right?  Here's the email chain between Corey and me.

Melissa Neddo	6/5/13
to corey.neddo

Isn't he cute?  

[email protected]	6/5/13
to me

He is cute.

Corey Neddo	6/5/13
to me

when is that dog available?

Melissa Neddo	6/5/13
to Corey

He's ready now.  The breeder has another litter that's ready in 3 weeks or so.  They have to be eating well before he lets them go.  They're about an hour away.  They're the ones with all the champion gun dogs or whatever.  :)

Corey Neddo	6/5/13
to me

He's pretty cute. Why has someone not snagged him already? 

Melissa Neddo	6/5/13
to Corey

Probably cause he's demented!  Who knows?  We'd go check him out and see if he is aggressive or a freak though.  

So, the kids and I piled in the van to go meet this little guy. So STUPID!

I couldn't resist!  I felt good about it.  So we took him home with us that night.  We were supposed to just meet him, but I figured why drive back the next day to pick him up.  We had to make a quick trip to the pet store for the basics that night.  We had such a great time playing with him and showing him off to the neighbors.  The kids were euphoric.  Then I woke up the next morning.  I sorta had a mental break down.  I offered Keller the money that we paid for him if we took him back.  Keller rubbed my back and said, "It'll be okay mom."  Pathetic.  I felt like I had postpartum depression.  I guess it isn't ALL hormones.  I hung in there and the kids really stepped up to help.

We had a heck of a time naming him though.  I wanted a girl dog named Scout after To Kill a Mockingbird.  A boy dog named Scout isn't as cute.  I thought Flearoy would be funny, but I didn't want to be yelling that out my front door for the next 15 years.  We tried several names out for almost 2 weeks before deciding on Dr. Watson, Sherlock's trusted sidekick.  It fit him.

He was such a cute puppy for what seemed like 3 weeks!  He grew so fast and changed a lot.  Here he is one year later weighing in at 40 lbs.  Still looking cute and just the right size for our family.

Anyway, long story short I wanted to return him many times over the last year.  We even had a family lined up to take him once, but I just couldn't do it to my kids.  They were learning some really good lessons about life, work, forgiveness and love.  Mostly forgiveness since he ate so many of their socks, toys, shoes and precious things.  We survived the puppy stage and now it's so much easier.  It still is a big job, but I'm glad we did it.  And that boy that started this all has really matured over this last year.  He's also grown several inches and shoe sizes since we got Watson.