historyOfTheHouse
We became the owners of the purplehouseonpearl on October 21st 2005. Everything before this date we will call the prehistory of the house, see link on right. The day that we closed we went to home depot and spent any remaining money we had on essentials for the home, including paint. Lots of changes underway!
The first weekend we removed the purple paint from the office and painted it winter surf… as we were painting I thought, MY GOD! Why did he let me pick paint again, neon teal…. Great color choice…. The color has faded and grown on us and is a very invigorating color, good for an office. Then we painted the dinning room a soft yellowy neutral (castle stone) covering up the existing gray. In the living room we paint green over green (rejuvenate). The only interesting fact here being the faoux stone arch in the living room we painted over.
We began moving things just 2 days after closing and within a week threw our Horrifying Halloween House-warming Hurrah!
In November we battled with learning how to put up storm windows and remove the screens. We also painted both bedrooms; from mustard yellow to a soft purple with a dark blue accent wall in our room and spare room went from primer white to celery ice.
Our entry way was red when we moved in, which in theory we liked, but the paint didn’t go all the way to the ceiling, it stopped half way up and was very splotchy. It took us 4 coats over 2 weekends to get the red to cover up, and yes we painted red over red. If you are painting red paint, use a tinted primer (which we didn’t) and never do more than 2 coats of color without at least 48 hours between the sets of two for dry time. Red is incredibly hard to get nice coverage with, even after 4 coats there are areas where you can see drips through from the original.
The upstairs hallway was dark blue. We felt this clashed greatly with the green in the living room and the red entry way, it quickly went the same color as the dining room. We still have touch ups to do in the stairway as we did all of it without a ladder! The upstairs hall is very bright now.
As soon as the weather warmed up we moved our focus outside. We pulled out the remaining bushes in the front which were damaged when the basement wall was dug up, prehistory. Over April fools we tore out the deck in the back. shesaid ‘s father came down to help, with the persuader” and a chainsaw. The deck was demolished that weekend and stored in the garage until the middle of summer (it took weeks to haul away the entire mess with out us owning a truck). It took a few more weeks to remove the wood decking, and put up the trellises and spread down mulch so it wouldn’t be muddy back there until we can turn it into a patio. We are still in the process of painting the trellises, planting vines (2 have started) and finishing enclosing the back.
In the spring we also created a garden in the front yard where some mulch had been left the previous fall. We hauled in more mulch and created a large bed in the front which will get planted this fall with perennials and a crab apple tree.
This fall there will be more planting, hopefully a fence going up in back and painting on the house. The focus will turn back to the inside in the winter finishing touching up paint; change the color of the bottom stairwell. We also hope to attempt to remove the wall paper in the kitchen and bath, painting both rooms, and some other face-lifting in the kitchen.
