Front Porch

Front Porch. Epilogue.

Has anyone seen my concentration?
I’ve been trying to finish this post for three days, but my brain keeps wandering off…  The kind of stealth abandonment where it sneaks away, unsupervised and unnoticed.

Squandering your thoughts on the consideration of things that are clearly a total waste of time.  And yet seem entirely necessary.

For example:
A Pinterest board dedicated to why Karl Lagerfeld is insane.  Which would also be a Pinterest board dedicated to why Karl Lagerfeld is awesome.

Wrap around Victorian front porch

In comparison, the final Front Porch post is boring. But that’s what you’re getting.

Wow. This is totally fascinating… keep reading.

Front Porch – Part 3 of 3. Where we sand and stain the floor. But first try to kill each other.

The most exciting part of this front porch project?  When we actually PAID someone to do work.  It goes against everything Paul stands for… but sanding a floor is the one task he’ll allow someone else to do.

If you’re wondering what it’s like?  To pay someone?  It’s unbelievably awesome.

I left to go to the farmer’s market and the library and an estate sale.  Because when you pay someone else to do work, you can leave your house… and when you come home it’s magically finished! Wow. This is totally fascinating… keep reading.

Front Porch – Part 2 of 3 – where we paint stuff, and then paint more stuff.

When I used to give people directions to our house, I would tell them to look for the skinny blue house with bright purple shutters.

And purple foundation.  And purple doors.  And purple eaves.
And purple everything.

Wow. This is totally fascinating… keep reading.

Front Porch – Part 1 – a saga in three acts… Similar to War and Peace. In Russian. Except about paint and power washing. And in English.

I haven’t written about the house for over a month now…  Incase you thought that was because we magically finished?  We didn’t.

Wow. This is totally fascinating… keep reading.

Don’t You Love The Overgrown Louisiana Bayou Look? – Little Edie Beale

The day we moved in, our front porch looked like this:

Like maybe we were in the jungle.  Or Key West.  It was really private—which I loved.   It had an overgrown, Grey Gardens vibe.  Which was pleasing in a dramatic way.  Like I might become a person who wears scarves and doesn’t clean the house, and eats tinned caviar for dinner.

Wow. This is totally fascinating… keep reading.

Color Blindness

It’s early Sunday, and Paul is back at it. Until this weekend, the exterior of the house has been low on the list of priorities, seeing as how the inside looked like this:

Our plan was to finish the current project in the hallway bath before spring. And to spend the beautiful months outside. But as usual, everything has taken seven times longer than expected—the sum of which is the stalled progress in the bath.

Paul has taken the blockade surprisingly well. Perhaps after the last two years, he is better able to take in stride the limitations of doing a project with a slow and indecisive partner. Or, I have just worn him down. Either way, he’s getting started on the countless exterior issues.

The foundation of the house and the porch both need some extreme renovation. Structurally, they are fine. But aesthetically and practically, they are a disaster.
Witness the color of our foundation:

Obviously the glass block delights me to no end.

If you look at my About The House page, you’ll see that the interior of our house was painted every shade of the neon rainbow. And they carried that frenzy right out to the base of the house.

We are constantly amazed by the lack of attention the previous owners gave to detail, upkeep, maintenance… versus their endless supply of attention to paint. Plus? If you’re going to paint your porch ceiling orange? Don’t you at least want to stay inside the lines?