May 24

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Painting the house.  AGAIN.  Every 5-10 years, whether it needs it or not.........

Family room down, rest-of-the-north-side to go.

One of the best decisions we made, 30 years ago, was putting a pigmented stain on the house, rather than paint.  The stain really doesn't come off.  The old paint underneath the stain comes off.  Sometimes in big sheets, as you might guess from seeing the scraped-off house above.  But the stain really doesn't come off.  If you started with stain, and bare wood, you wouldn't be doing any scraping before re"painting", I think.



Once upon a time, our house was turquoise.  Doesn't it make you wonder what color the rest of the neighborhood was?  Not that it necessarily follows that one colorful house means a neighborhood of colorful houses.  When we bought this house, one of the houses across the street was mustard yellow.  It was alone in its emphatic color.  (And now is a much duller taupe.)

I kinda wish our house were turquoise now!  :-)  Much more interesting than brown.  But brown is more interesting than white, I guess, which is still the majority color on our street, I bet.

Our house was forest green when we bought it.  You can see a bit of forest green at the bottom of this chip, left of center.  I'm pretty sure the house was white/cream at one point, too.  Prepping for painting is a bit like archaeology -- uncovering the layers that indicate what has gone on, in a particular spot, in decades past.



Red new maple leaves in our yard.

Small flowery shrub in our yard (it's been here since we bought the house).  I saw this in a nursery once, and noted the name, but I've forgotten.

My species tulips have set seed.  Don't they have a cool seed pod?  The shape, and the stripes?

Not in my yard any more.  Walking.

I think this is a dahlia.  I don't remember dahlias blooming this early, but I've seen lots of blooming dahlias this year, already.  At least, I'm pretty sure they are dahlias..........

Tree peony.  This is a tall one.  I bet it's nearly as tall as I am.  Or maybe it's as tall.

This retaining wall is apparently made of chunks of old sidewalk.  Love the way the fallen poppy petals have arranged themselves on the wall.........

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